Aftandilian Publishes Op-Ed on Saudi Arabia’s Nuclear Plants
Gregory Aftandilian, Lecturer at the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University, published an Op-Ed on recent conflicts between the Trump administration and Congress over Saudi Arabia’s plans to build nuclear power plants.
Aftandilian’s Op-Ed, entitled “Will Washington Offer Riyadh a ‘Flexible’ Nuclear Deal?” was published in The Arab Weekly on April 22, 2018.
From the text of the Op-Ed:
A revealing exchange occurred during the confirmation hearing of Mike Pompeo, who is US President Donald Trump’s nominee to be secretary of state: US Senator Ed Markey, a Democrat from Massachusetts who has long been a critic of nuclear energy and of nuclear proliferation, asked Pompeo whether he supported reaching a “123 Agreement,” also known as the Gold Standard, for Riyadh.
A 123 Agreement means a country can develop nuclear power stations but with the proviso that there would be strict limits on uranium enrichment and a prohibition on the reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel to preclude the development of a nuclear weapon. The United Arab Emirates accepted such an arrangement from the United States in 2009.
Pompeo said he favoured the Gold Standard for Saudi Arabia but when Markey pressed him further by asking whether he would oppose anything less strict than the Gold Standard, Pompeo equivocated, stating first that he “can’t answer” that question and then saying that he could “imagine that scenario.”
This response led Markey to ask what the Iranian response would be if Saudi Arabia were granted something less strict than the Gold Standard. Pompeo underscored that the Iran nuclear deal was not the Gold Standard because Iran was still able to enrich uranium (albeit at a much lower level than before), implying that the Iran case has made the Saudis nervous.
Aftandilian spent over 21 years in government service, most recently on Capitol Hill where he was foreign policy adviser to Congressman Chris Van Hollen (2007-2008), professional staff member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and foreign policy adviser to Senator Paul Sarbanes (2000-2004), and foreign policy fellow to the late Senator Edward Kennedy (1999).