Rationale of the request for lifting U.S. sanctions against NIKIET
In January of 1999, the U.S. Administration took a decision to apply sanctions against NIKIET on account of the Institute's alleged collaboration with Iran on heavy water production.
Russian authorities made a comprehensive inquiry into the matter. In mid-1999, the Office of Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation investigated compliance with the export control law at Minatom enterprises, including NIKIET, and found no breaches of national legislature or international commitments of Russia in the area of nonproliferation of mass destruction weapons and delivery systems.
In late June, 1999, Minatom of Russia examined in detail the organization and practice of in-house export control in NIKIET and judged it to be adequate. Later that year, in September, a Russian - U.S. Seminar on Export Control was successfully held at NIKIET.
On June 21, 2000, following the inquest, the Office of Prosecutor General dismissed the criminal case against NIKIET in the absence of corpus delicti. The legal proceedings against NIKIET officials had been instituted on suspicion of their involvement in illegal export to Iran in 1996-97 of certain scientific and technological information that might be used in creation of mass destruction weapons.
As established by independent experts and the inquest, the review of the Iranian conceptual design of a pilot heavy-water production facility, performed by NIKIET specialists before the application of the U.S. sanctions, relied on information found in open literature, predominantly Western, and did not add anything new to the design reviewed. The design in question was conceptual rather than engineering, let alone detailed. The review was a typical procedure practiced for many industrial processes and had nothing specific to production of mass destruction weapons.
Thus, NIKIET made a review that involved no scientific or technological information usable for production of mass destruction weapons.
There are several points that should be emphasized in this connection.
Firstly, NIKIET has never performed any actual work for Iran, nuclear field included. Apart from the above review, NIKIET experts had only properly authorized discussions with Iranian counterparts on the following subjects:
- Prospects for creating a nuclear research center with a light-water (not heavy-water) reactor. The center would have been placed under the IAEA safeguards from the very beginning of its design as demanded by NIKIET and pledged by Iran, should it have been started.
- Possible NIKIET involvement in preparation of a safety case for Bushehr NPP to address the problems of corrosion, thermal physics and strength analysis.
Secondly, in September of 1998, i.e. before the U.S. sanctions, Prof. E. Adamov, Russian Minister for Atomic Energy, instructed NIKIET to terminate all contacts with Iran. NIKIET has had no cooperation with Iranian organizations ever since, except for a single unauthorized contact with Iranians made by several specialists on their own outside the NIKIET premises. The contact took place before the sanctions of January 1999 and was immediately stopped by NIKIET management, with the contact initiator subjected to administrative punishment.
Thirdly, all NIKIET specialists involved in the contacts with Iran, or of potential interest to this country, made a voluntary pledge in writing to refrain from any unauthorized contacts with Iran during their time with NIKIET and for at least five years after leaving the Institute. They were all warned of their liability for violation of this commitment.
This was yet another step of the Russian side taken in the framework of the Adamov-Holum plan on settling the problem.
Regrettably, the findings of the above official inquiries and repeated independent reviews, though providing good grounds for refuting the U.S. suspicions - which as a matter of fact have never been supported by solid evidence - have so far failed to convince the U.S. Administration of the need to lift the sanctions against NIKIET.
In fact, NIKIET is not the only loser in this situation. There are U.S. companies which are also in the losing league as a result of halted collaboration, since they were deprived of the opportunity to participate in implementation of Russian - U.S. projects in the areas where NIKIET is a "natural" monopolist historically cast in this role during the development of the Soviet nuclear complex. Such are, for instance, the programs for safety enhancement of Russian nuclear power plants with RBMK reactors, for decommissioning of nuclear submarines and of RBMK plants, for space applications of nuclear power systems.
In view of the above, it is hardly appropriate or reasonable to keep the U.S. sanctions against NIKIET and especially at the time when our countries have joined forces to stand up to international terrorism.
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