Fears Grow That Soviet A-Arms Are on Market

Iran’s massive new arms buildup, a Libyan attempt to hire Russian nuclear experts and reports that Iran purchased three nuclear weapons have heightened fears here that the Soviet Union’s breakup will spur nuclear proliferation and enable terrorists to acquire weapons of mass destruction.

U.S. officials are warning that nuclear arms--as well as conventional weapons--may find their way to the international black market as “arms bazaars” sprout up in the former Soviet Union, where hard currency is in short supply.

“We may have to devote a large amount of resources to find a definitive answer as to where these weapons are going,” said Sen. Warren B. Rudman (R-N.H.), a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee. “And the larger question is what we then do about it. It’s very serious, and the NATO countries and former Warsaw Pact countries should work together on this because it is a terrible threat to everyone.”

Rudman called the recent developments “ominous” and of deep concern. “There’s no question that we are going to have to increase our surveillance--both diplomatic and intelligence--of what’s going on on nuclear proliferation,” he said.

Against this backdrop, the State Department announced that a high-level delegation next week will visit Russia and the three other former Soviet republics where nuclear weapons are deployed to talk about ways to prevent the sale of nuclear arms and technology.

Meanwhile, in the wake of a Los Angeles Times report that Iran is engaged in a multibillion-dollar arms buildup that will make it the most powerful military force in the Persian Gulf, there were several related developments in Moscow and Tehran:

* In Moscow, a Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman confirmed that substantial arms sales to Iran are under way. He said Russian Federation President Boris N. Yeltsin wants to reassess his country’s policy on arms sales and is open to proposals that the world’s major weapons producers jointly exercise “restraint” in troubled regions.

* In a speech quoted by Tehran Radio, Iran’s spiritual leader, the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said the United States has no business questioning the country’s weapons program. “Iran’s revolutionary Muslim people recognize no false hegemony for America or any other power and pay no attention to arrogant propaganda aimed at putting pressure on Iran,” he said.

Khamenei made no mention of a report in the Egyptian newspaper Al Watan al Arabi that Iran had hired 50 nuclear experts from former Soviet republics and had purchased three nuclear weapons from one of the states for more than $150 million.

A senior U.S. official said the government has been unable to confirm or deny the report, which did not identify the republic. He said the government is still checking into the matter.

Vyacheslav Rozanov of the Kurchatov Institute, the top Soviet nuclear research center, confirmed that Libya tried to hire two Russian experts for its nuclear program. They rejected offers of $2,000 a month to go to Libya, he said, adding that they might have accepted if the pay had been higher.

Although the offers were for jobs in peaceful nuclear energy work, Rozanov said their abilities could be useful in developing nuclear warheads. The institute has encouraged its scientists to reject such offers, he said.

The 11 former Soviet republics in the Commonwealth of Independent States recently agreed to establish a permanent joint command to control the 27,000 nuclear warheads in the former Soviet Union’s arsenal. And President Bush has said he believes the existing controls over the nuclear arms are adequate to safeguard against their unauthorized use or diversion.

But several foreign officials, including former Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard A. Shevardnadze, have expressed concern that despite the controls, nuclear weapons could fall into the hands of paramilitary groups.

In a radio interview, Gen. Gerd Schmueckle, former North Atlantic Treaty Organization deputy commander, said he agrees with Shevardnadze and hopes that the United States will lead a global effort to ban and destroy all nuclear weapons after helping the former Soviet republics comply with arms control agreements.

“The whole situation in the area of atomic weapons is unsatisfactory, and Shevardnadze was right when he expressed worry that such weapons now could come into the hands of paramilitary groups, and I will go further, into the hands of terrorists,” Schmueckle said.

The Administration arms control delegation, which will be led by Undersecretary of State Reginald Bartholomew and will include officials of the Defense and Energy departments, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Arms Control and Disarmanent Agency and National Security Council, will meet with leaders of Russia, Kazakhstan, Ukraine and Belarus. Spokeswoman Margaret Tutwiler said the group will discuss “establishing strict export controls (on nuclear technology) and legal obligations under international agreements.”

The delegation, which arrives in Moscow next Wednesday and will stay a week, will be prepared to discuss specific proposals for U.S. assistance to destroy Soviet nuclear weapons, Tutwiler said. Congress already has appropriated $400 million to help dismantle the Soviet arsenal.

Tutwiler said the details of the trip were set Thursday in a telephone conversation between Secretary of State James A. Baker III and Russian Foreign Minister Andrei Kozyrev. Baker and Kozyrev also discussed a meeting later this month between Bush and Yeltsin, who plans to attend a U.N. Security Council summit in late January in New York.

Yeltsin reportedly would like to put the issue of controlling nuclear weapons on the agenda for the U.N. summit but faces resistance from his substantial military-industrial complex, which fears the loss of important arms orders.

Vitaly I. Churkin, a Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman, told a regular ministry press briefing in Moscow that Russia’s arms sale policy “will be thought through, openly and critically, and we are prepared to discuss it with all countries. Specifically, we are ready to discuss the need for restraint because we believe there is such a need.”

Past discussions between Moscow and Washington on curbing arms sales have foundered on two issues: their backing for rivals in various conflicts, notably Israel and its Arab neighbors, and their inability to draw into the discussions other arms suppliers, including Britain, China and France.

In Washington, officials expressed concern that the problem may be intensified because Iran has moved more rapidly than the United States to establish relations with the Muslim republics of the former Soviet Union. “We have not moved very rapidly into diplomatic relationships with some of the Muslim republics of the former Soviet Union,” said Sen. Richard G. Lugar (R-Ind.), a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. “And some countries, including Iran, have moved much more quickly.”

The United States, he said, “will have to be aggressive in its security diplomacy or it’s inevitable that some of these weapons will wind up in the wrong places.”

Times staff writers Norman Kempster in Washington and Michael Parks in Moscow contributed to this report.