Dresden 2011 – scientific programme

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AGA: Arbeitsgruppe Physik und Abrüstung

AGA 5: Nuclear Verification and Detection

AGA 5.1: Invited Talk

Friday, March 18, 2011, 10:00–11:00, MENSA Dül

The UK-Norway initiative for verification of nuclear warhead dismantlement -- Lessons Learned — •Steinar Høibråten — Norwegian Defence Research Establishment

Since 2007, the United Kingdom and Norway has been cooperating on a technical level about the verification of nuclear warhead dismantlement. This is the first ever practical cooperation in this field between a nuclear weapons state and a non-nuclear weapons state. Many obstacles occur in such a verification process. The inspectors must see enough to be confident that the warhead in question is actually dismantled. At the same time, both parties must observe the restrictions of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) which prohibits the transfer of nuclear weapons design information from a nuclear weapons state to a non-nuclear weapons state. In addition, nuclear weapons and nuclear weapons facilities are highly sensitive from a national security point of view. The two countries carried out a joint exercise in Norway in June 2009 involving the dismantlement of a mock nuclear weapon. The presentation is mainly based on our experiences from that exercise.