Evidence Points to Burma’s Nuclear Weapons ‘Intent’ – The Irrawaddy

Evidence Points to Burma’s Nuclear Weapons ‘Intent’ – The Irrawaddy

June 4th, 2010

BANGKOK—There are regional and international security implications arising out of fresh evidence that Burma is seeking nuclear weapons and is in breach of a UN arms embargo on North Kore

Referencing the nuclear issue, US Sen. Jim Webb on Thursday canceled his scheduled trip to Burma. “It would be inappropriate and counter-productive for me to go at this time,” Webb told journalists at a Thursday press conference in Bangkok. While the substance of the nuclear issue and the potential breach of UN Security Council Resolution 1874 remain to be clarified, Webb said, “There is enough for now in these two allegations, which need to be resolved,” before he could reconsider going to Burma.seeking nuclear weapons and is in breach of a UN arms embargo on North Korea.

While allegations about a junta nuclear weapons program have emerged in the past, the latest reports are backed by documentation and photographs supplied by Burmese army defector Maj Sai Thein Win. A news documentary about the issue ran on Al-Jazeera today and is based on work carried out by the Democratic Voice of Burma news agency. Sai Thein Win had to flee Burma after superiors suspected that information about missile-building and uranium enrichment programs were being leaked. He says “that they really want to build a bomb, they want rockets and nuclear warheads.”

American nuclear scientist Robert Kelley, a former director in the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the international nuclear watchdog, said he spent months examining the material supplied by Sai Thein Win and concluded that the projects outlined in the material are “useful only for weapons.”

In an overview published on the DVB website, Kelley said: “The total picture is very compelling. Burma is trying to build pieces of a nuclear program, specifically a nuclear reactor to make plutonium and a uranium enrichment program. Burma has a close partnership with North Korea.”

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http://www.simonroughneen.com/asia/seasia/burma/evidence-points-to-burmas-nuclear-weapons-intent-the-irrawaddy/#more-2859