Brazil May Permit Broader Inspections

Attempting to silence the recent clamor over Brazil’s nuclear energy program, Brazilian Ambassador to the United States Roberto Abdenur has disclosed that Brazil is carefully vetting an additional protocol to its safeguards agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

The controversy erupted in April when Brazil refused to allow IAEA inspectors to look at all of the components of its Resende uranium-enrichment plant, citing concerns about industrial secrets. (See ACT, May 2004.) Brazil had also refused suggestions by the United States and others that it sign an additional protocol.
Abdenur stated May 14 that Brazil never said it would not sign an additional protocol and was in fact carefully reviewing the proposal.

Yet, he said that Brasilia wanted acknowledgment that it faced a “special situation” as a country that once had a nuclear weapons program but subsequently ended it. He also made clear that Brazil still has reservations in principle about such protocols and disagrees with those states, including the United States, who would like to universalize them. (See ACT, March 2004.) Abdenur insisted that “the [1997 IAEA model] Additional Protocol should not be standard. It is good, but not a one-size-fits-all agreement.”

Articulating Brazil’s perspective on nuclear nonproliferation and disarmament in remarks at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C., Abdenur argued that his country’s intentions have been misunderstood at home and abroad. “It is very unpleasant for Brazil to be put under pressure as if we have evil intentions,” Abdenur said. He reaffirmed that Brazil has no desire to obtain nuclear weapons, emphasizing that “the only use Brazil would have for nuclear weapons is to shoot itself in the foot.”

The new ambassador, who arrived in Washington in April after serving as representative to the IAEA in Vienna for the last two years, outlined Brazil’s cooperation with the nonproliferation regime, including its ratification of the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. Brazil ratified the treaty in 1998 but still views it as discriminatory because it allows the five declared nuclear-weapon states—China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States—to possess nuclear weapons legally.

Abdenur insisted that Brazil is strongly committed to nonproliferation accords, including its IAEA safeguards agreement, and that “it is a fantastic example of a country totally committed to nonproliferation.” Abdenur said that “the issue is not if safeguards apply at Resende…it’s a question of how the safeguards apply: how to define the procedures so that an adequate equilibrium exists between inspections and Brazil’s right to protect industrial secrets.”