"Brazil says its enrichment program is for peaceful purposes, and there is no reason to doubt it. The treaty permits signers to produce enriched uranium to fuel commercial and research reactors, store the radioactive fuel and reprocess spent fuel as long as all nuclear facilities are subject to I.A.E.A. oversight.
But the its greatest flaw is that the same facilities that enrich uranium for peaceful purposes can also be used to enrich it further for nuclear weapons. And reprocessed fuel from peaceful reactors yields plutonium that can be used in nuclear bombs. By exploiting this “enrichment loophole,” North Korea developed a covert program to reprocess spent fuel, withdrew from the treaty and, soon after, developed nuclear weapons. Iran is trying to do the same.
Of the countries now operating or constructing nuclear energy or research reactors under the treaty, more than 40 also have the capabilities to build nuclear weapons by exploiting this loophole. If Iran develops this capability, it could, as President Obama has warned, exert inexorable pressure on Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Turkey to quickly pursue nuclear weapons themselves.
Brazil has unique standing among developing nations to address this proliferation danger because of its historic, nationalist defense of enrichment. If it were to renounce its right to enrich uranium in the name of international peace, close its enrichment facility, embrace a longstanding United Nations proposal to accept enriched uranium from the I.A.E.A., let the agency reprocess its spent fuel — essentially the deal offered to Iran — and call on other states that have signed the treaty to do the same, it would transform the nuclear debate."
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/04/opinion/can-brazil-stop-iran.html?_r=1&nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20120404
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