The Senate Foreign Relations Committee yesterday voted out legislation authorizing a two-year extension of a civil nuclear cooperation agreement between the United States and South Korea. The current agreement is scheduled to expire on March 19, and the Administration has asked Congress for a simple extension of the deal to allow time to work out remaining issues. Similar legislation passed the House in September, but the Senate bill includes a requirement for the Administration to provide Congress with a report on the progress of negotiations every 180 days. “This provides Congress with the opportunity to continue working with the Administration as the new U.S.-Korea 123 is finalized,” Committee Chairman Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) said at the bill’s markup yesterday. He added that the Foreign Relations Committee plans to hold a hearing in the coming weeks on general policy regarding 123 agreements.
Korea’s interest in potential development of enrichment and reprocessing technologies has concerned some lawmakers, including Ranking Member Bob Corker (R-Tenn.). “Our relationship with Korea is robust, however, we do not always agree on all the issues, including sometimes in the areas of nonproliferation in civilian nuclear cooperation,” Corker said at yesterday’s markup. “We are here today extending the current nuclear cooperation agreement because our negotiators remain at loggerheads over a key issue. Korea’s request for advance consent to acquire sensitive nuclear technologies including enrichment and reprocessing capabilities in our negotiations on a new bilateral 123 agreement. These technologies can be used to produce nuclear material that could be diverted from civilian energy to a nuclear weapon. This is not something that I can support.”
