The New U.S.-ROK civil nuclear cooperation agreement

Tazaki, Makiko; Shimizu, Ryo; Suda, Kazunori

JAEA-Review 2016-019, 118 Pages, 2016/10

JAEA-Review-2016-019.pdf:4.73MB

In November 2015, the new nuclear cooperation agreement between US and ROK entered into force. A top priority of their negotiation for revising their old agreement was whether or not the US grants its advanced consent to the ROK engagement in uranium enrichment and pyroprocessing of US-origin nuclear material. Under the new agreement, in principle, the ROK is able to conduct uranium enrichment and reprocessing at certain facilities prescribed in Annexes III and II to the Agreed Minute of the new agreement. However, as of the date of validation of the agreement, no facilities are prescribed in both Annexes. It means that the US does not grant its advanced consent to ROK such activities. The new agreement allows the US adherence of its nuclear nonproliferation policy, while it also allows ROK future possibility of engaging such activities. Such result can be analyzed that the new agreement was a product of reality-based and maximal compromise among the US and ROK.