WASHINGTON – The United States’ civil nuclear cooperation agreement, or 123 agreement, with Saudi Arabia has been sent to Congress for review, Energy Secretary Chris Wright confirmed Wednesday to reporters at a press conference.
Wright spoke with International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Rafael Grossi at IAEA’s Atomic Technologies Licensed for Applications at Sea, or ATLAS, two-day initiative launch event at the Waldorf Astoria hotel here.
When asked by Exchange Monitor about the agreement with Saudi Arabia, and how it compares to other U.S. civil nuclear agreements with other countries, Wright said there were “very strong non-proliferation protocols in this agreement. Very strong, bilaterally negotiated in cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency.”
A 123 agreement is a legal framework named after section 123 of the 1954 Atomic Energy Act calling for peaceful nuclear cooperation between the U.S. and another country, and requiring a commitment to nuclear nonproliferation between both countries in order for the other party to receive exported nuclear material from the U.S.
This particular deal with Saudi Arabia has been controversial among Democrats, including Sens. Chris Murphy (Conn.) and Jeff Merkley (Ore.). Both expressed concerns that Saudi Arabia potentially had reservations about the “gold standard” protocols in other 123 agreements, mainly inspection of nuclear sites and the absence of reprocessing and enrichment.
“I’ve heard things in the press saying [the agreement is] bringing enrichment or granting enrichment and reprocessing to Saudi Arabia. Just not true,” Wright said.
When the Monitor asked about how the Donald Trump administration confirmed the absence of IAEA additional protocols in the Saudi agreement, which gives IAEA expanded inspection authority to verify peaceful nuclear material use, Wright said, “this additional protocol people hear about, I think the United States has two countries that we have a 123 agreement with [this protocol]. So that is one pathway to have rigorous non-proliferation standards. But there are multiple others.”
Wright was apparently referring to the situation with two countries, Argentina and Brazil, which have a 123 agreement with the U.S without the IAEA additional protocols.
“Of course, our mission is to prevent proliferation of nuclear weapons, so the IAEA could never participate or endorse any type of agreement that would leave loopholes in this regard,” Grossi said, adding that “the bilateral agreement still has to come to us for consideration and approval by the border governors. But we have been intensively working with Saudi Arabia, with the United States government, and what I can tell you is that the idea is that we will have a number of extra measures.”
Grossi also said IAEA inspectors will be in Saudi Arabia “checking that there is no deviation, that there are no undeclared activities.”
“No country has more rigorous non-proliferation standards than the United States of America,” Wright said, “and this agreement has very rigorous, very clear, very inspection, trust but verify provisions that leave myself, the government of the United States, and our partners in Saudi Arabia very confident that this is a civilian program, will remain a civilian program, and it will be verifiably a civilian program.”