Hans-Ulrich Seidt German Ambassador

This is the first in a series of interviews with envoys of countries participating in the Nuclear Security Summit slated for March 26-27 in Seoul ― ED.

By Philip Iglauer

Germany believes nuclear energy is a “high risk” 20th-century source of energy and that regimes around the world should not harbor the illusion that possessing nuclear weapons “guarantees the status quo.”

Germany’s top envoy in Korea said that Europe’s largest economy “strongly believes that the energy solution of the 21st century lies with renewable energy resources,” not civilian nuclear power, just weeks ahead of the world’s pre-eminent gathering on nuclear security that will take place in Seoul.

German Ambassador Hans-Ulrich Seidt said the cases of regimes that possessed nuclear weapons but collapsed anyway ― the former Soviet Union, which owned thousands of nuclear missiles, and apartheid South Africa, which had seven nuclear warheads ― show that having nukes does not ensure regime survival.

“It is a high risk technology on the military side,” Seidt said in an interview with The Korea Times.

He said that incidents at Three Mile Island in the United States in 1978, Chernobyl in the Ukraine in 1986 and last year in Fukushima, Japan, prove how dangerous nuclear energy is, too.

“All three incidents demonstrated that in the civilian field, too, nuclear energy is a high risk technology,” he said.

Fukushima and Chernobyl both ranked as level 7 disasters on the International Nuclear Event scale.

Some 50 leaders, including foreign ministers and heads of state, will attend the 2012 Seoul Nuclear Security Summit from March 26 to 27.

Seidt said that Germany supports the eventual total denuclearization in the military field and stopping the proliferation of nuclear weapons technology, in line with the prohibitions of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

Germany does not possess nuclear weapons and last year pledged to shut down its nine remaining civilian nuclear reactors by 2022.

“We hope a very positive message will be sent in this summit that proliferation and nuclear weapons programs run outside the prohibitions of the NPT, and that is something the world community should not accept in the 21st century,” Sedit said.

The German ambassador said text elements for a “Seoul Declaration” to come out of the summit are already on the table in the form of resolutions by the United Nations and the International Atomic Energy Agency.

“It should be a strong signal and one shared by all participants. It should be a common message coming out of Seoul ― common and consensual,” he said.

World leaders met in a nuclear security summit for the first time in 2010. The summits already promise to be the place where global nuclear material security is evaluated and new commitments are made to improve the world’s defenses against nuclear terrorism, weapons proliferation and civilian accidents.

“(The summit) will have a very special meaning with regard to the current situation on the Korean Peninsula ― its high militarization and, of course, the negotiations about the nuclear weapons program in the North.” Seoul is just 50 kilometers from the North Korean border where the highest concentration of military forces in the world face off on either side of the Demilitarized Zone.

The North has a nuclear program that is regarded by people all over the world, and rightly so, as a very dangerous one not only because the North Koreans are trying to develop nuclear weapons but also because they are proliferating nuclear weapons science and technology

“North Korea will be with us, it will be there in the background, together with other current issues. It will be with us during the whole meeting,” Sedit said.

Organizers announced Seoul as the host for 2012 summit at the first gathering in Washington, D.C. in 2010 with Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons programs on their mind. In a speech inaugurating the 2010 summit, U.S. President Barack Obama said the international community has an opportunity to ensure that “progress is not fleeting” but a “serious and sustained effort, and that's why I am so pleased to announce that President Lee Myung-bak has agreed to host the next Nuclear Security Summit in Korea in two years. This reflects South Korea’s leadership, regionally and globally.”

South Korean Minister of Unification Yu Woo-ik is expected to visit Germany and the European Union headquarters in Brussels at the end of this month ahead of the summit.

“I am sure they will follow very closely the summit which will take place only about two or three weeks before (North Korean founder) the 100th anniversary of Kim Il-sung’s birth,” Seidt said. “I have the feeling that many efforts are underway to re-open communication channels and we believe these efforts are very, very positive."