From the Associated Press:
Kyrgyzstan on Sunday signed on to a U.S. program to curb nuclear smuggling, becoming the fourth former Soviet state to join the initiative.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Kyrgyz Foreign Minister Ednan Karabayev signed an agreement that will help the Central Asian nation improve its capability to prevent, detect and respond to the smuggling of dangerous nuclear and radioactive material.
The deal commits Washington and Bishkek to taking 20 steps, including police and border security guard training, setting up radiation sensors and preparing an inventory of nuclear material in Kyrgyzstan, to combat growing concerns about the illicit trade.
What is The Nuclear Smuggling Outreach Initiative? In short: a State Department initiative to conclude tailored action plans with other countries “to prevent, detect, and respond to incidents of nuclear smuggling.”
The initiative represents the Bush administration’s preference for county-specific agreements when it comes to WMD concerns. The US-India nuclear represents this approach, as does the Proliferation Security Initiative. While these deals can be easier to implement, they lead to legitimacy problems: with deals enshrining different standards for different countries, and lacking the inertia of multinational agreements such as the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.
