UN asks Brazil to clarify on nuclear research

www.haaretzdaily.com 22:52 10/01/2003 Last update - 22:52 10/01/2003 By Reuters

BRASILIA, Brazil - The UN nuclear watchdog agency has informally asked Brazil to clarify whether its new science minister has suggested the country should have the capacity to produce nuclear weapons, Brazil's foreign ministry said on Friday.

The International Atomic Energy Agency made the request during a meeting with Brazil's ambassador in Vienna, where the agency is based, a foreign ministry spokesman said.

The request came after comments by the science minister raised concern among international observers that the government of Brazil's new president, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, wanted nuclear weapons.

"Brazil is a country at peace... but we need to be prepared, including technologically," Lula's science and technology minister, Roberto Amaral, told the Brazilian service of the BBC on Sunday.

"We can't renounce any form of scientific knowledge, be it the genome, DNA or nuclear fission," the minister said.

Lula, Brazil's first president elected from a left-wing party, took office last week.

The foreign ministry spokesman said Brazil's ambassador to Vienna, Roberto Abdenur, had reiterated to the IAEA statements made by government officials this week that Brazil's nuclear research is purely for peaceful ends.

Advanced nuclear research Brazil's 1988 constitution forbids the development of nuclear weapons and Brazil has signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Wilson Rodrigues, the president of the Brazilian Institute of Nuclear Quality, which monitors Brazil's two nuclear energy plants, said Amaral's statements were misunderstood.

"This moment of tension between North Korea and the United States, the possibility of imminent conflict in Iraq...has highlighted the perception of people on this issue," Rodrigues told Reuters. "A phrase taken out of context can give the wrong impression."

Brazil and neighboring Argentina agreed to halt programs to develop nuclear weapons in the late 1980s after both countries returned to democratic rule after years of dictatorship and buried long-held regional rivalry.

Still, Brazil has the most advanced nuclear research in Latin America and has the greatest military capability in the region. The country is home to the world's sixth-biggest uranium reserves and it possesses the uranium enrichment technology for nuclear power reactors.

Brazil would need at least five years to develop a nuclear bomb, said an expert on Brazil's nuclear know-how who asked not to be identified.