Visit our website: HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK --------------------------------------------- Ankara - Turkish Daily News -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- In the last eight years there have been 104 attempts to smuggle nuclear material into Turkey, according to an internal report by the Turkish Atomic Energy Authority Nuclear smuggling rises in Turkey -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Highly influential American newspaper the New York Times has claimed that uranium trafficking has shifted from Europe to the Caucasus, Central Asia and Turkey. The NYT wrote, "The appearance of a relatively large quantity of uranium on the black market in Georgia underscored American concerns that such trafficking has shifted from Europe to the Caucasus, Central Asia and Turkey." The newspaper also wrote that Washington has responded to the issue by sending millions of dollars worth of detection equipment to several countries in the region. The Americans are also providing training for border guards to learn to spot illegal shipments of nuclear material, and they have helped to improve security at nuclear plants and airports, according to the Times' article. According to the report, "The nuclear material tends to come from Russia, but once it gets outside, the region is pretty wide open," Gary Milhollin, director of the Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control in Washington, said during a trip to the region to brief customs officials on suspected buyers. The International Atomic Energy Agency provided new figures on Friday showing that the number of confirmed cases of nuclear material smuggling had fallen in the rest of the world but had risen in Turkey, the Caucasus and Central Asia. Only four of the 104 cases from 1993 to 1995 occurred in this region, the agency reported, but from 1996 to last month, 16 of the 72 cases worldwide occurred in the region. The data covered only three weapons-related elements -- uranium, plutonium and thorium -- and only incidents confirmed by the international agency. In the last eight years, there have been 104 attempts to smuggle nuclear material into Turkey, according to an internal report by the Turkish Atomic Energy Authority. Most cases, like those elsewhere, involved tiny amounts of radioactive material with no weapons uses. But officials at the authority said a handful were potentially more serious. In September 1998, eight people were arrested for trying to smuggle nuclear material from Russia through Turkey to an unknown destination. The police seized about 5 kilograms of uranium-235 and 30 grams of a plutonium mixture. Yasar Ozal, director of Turkey's nuclear research center, said the plutonium and uranium were not weapons-grade material, but appeared to be fuel pellets. Nonetheless, he said, the appearance of plutonium on the black market was alarming. In another case, a Turk was arrested at the Bulgarian border carrying a small amount of enriched uranium-235 in May 1999. Authorities said that the quality was high and that the material might have been a sample that he was trying to use to drum up a larger sale. But Ismail Caliskan, director of Turkey's police unit fighting smuggling and organized crime, said the danger from nuclear smuggling had been exaggerated. Almost every incident, he said, involved amateur criminals trying to sell radioactive material with no weapons value. The only buyers, he said, are undercover policemen. Turkey is illustrating the difficulty of monitoring borders. The country is slightly larger than Texas and has 120 border posts, including crossings to Iraq and Syria in the south, Bulgaria in the northwest and Georgia, Armenia and Iran in the east. A senior customs official said only two border posts have systems to detect radioactive material, both donated by the United States. He asked that the locations not be identified, but said neither is at Habur, a busy crossing between Turkey and Iraq. ------------------------------------------------- This Discussion List is the follow-up for the old stopnato @listbot.com that has been shut down ==^================================================================ EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://topica.com/u/?a84x2u.a9spWA Or send an email To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] This email was sent to: archive@jab.org T O P I C A -- Register now to manage your mail! http://www.topica.com/partner/tag02/register ==^================================================================
