But substantive negotiations cannot advance far until Washington provides clearer guidance on how Seoul can secure nuclear fuel for the submarines.
IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi said Monday that South Korea "has formally notified the Secretariat of its intention to start consultations" on an arrangement under Article 14 of its Comprehensive Safeguards Agreement with the agency.
Seoul has also submitted relevant declarations to the IAEA and reaffirmed its commitment to meeting its obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, the safeguards agreement and the Additional Protocol, Grossi said.
He added that he expects consultations to continue "in the same spirit of transparency."
The notification represents a concrete step forward from June, when Grossi described discussions with Seoul as being at a preliminary stage.
South Korea is not negotiating a new safeguards agreement with the IAEA. The two sides must instead work out a separate arrangement under Article 14 of their existing agreement, which has governed the application of nuclear safeguards in South Korea since 1975.
Under the existing agreement, the arrangement must set out, as far as possible, the period or circumstances during which safeguards will not apply and require Seoul to keep the IAEA informed of the quantity and composition of the nuclear material involved.
Normal safeguards would have to be reapplied once the nuclear material is returned to a peaceful nuclear activity.
The negotiations could cover the submarine reactor, nuclear fuel and shore-based infrastructure while establishing mechanisms to protect sensitive military information.
Grossi stressed in June that the safeguards framework would depend on the specific submarine design, fuel and supporting infrastructure. Establishing a system capable of addressing proliferation concerns would therefore take time, he said.
Australia offers a glimpse of how lengthy and technically detailed the process could become.
Australia began formal negotiations with the IAEA on an Article 14 arrangement in May 2023, but the talks remained ongoing as of June this year.
The two sides have discussed issues including advance notification, reporting and verification, the duration and circumstances of the arrangement, the point at which normal safeguards would resume and safeguards for facilities and sites associated with the submarine program.
South Korea could face a similarly detailed process before reaching a final arrangement.
Yet the bigger unresolved issue lies outside the IAEA: how South Korea and the United States will reach an agreement on securing nuclear fuel for the submarines.
The government plans to use uranium enriched to below 20 percent and launch its first nuclear-powered submarine in the mid-2030s, with operational deployment planned for the late 2030s.
Washington formally backed Seoul's submarine ambitions following the summit between President Lee Jae Myung and U.S. President Donald Trump last October.
Turning that political commitment into an actual fuel supply arrangement has proved more complicated.
The Foreign Ministry said in June that nuclear fuel for submarines constitutes a military use of nuclear energy and therefore needs to be handled separately from negotiations over South Korea's civilian uranium enrichment and spent fuel reprocessing rights under the bilateral nuclear cooperation agreement.
The government has said importing submarine fuel from the United States is among the options under consideration and that a separate arrangement with Washington would be needed.
Yet bilateral security negotiations, including discussions concerning the nuclear-powered submarine program, have stalled.
A presidential official said last week that South Korea-U.S. negotiations on security issues were "not currently progressing," referring in part to Seoul's plan to build nuclear-powered submarines under last year's bilateral agreement.
The official did not elaborate on what was holding up the talks or when substantive negotiations on the submarine program might resume.
"It is possible to operate a submarine using the kind of nuclear fuel used in nuclear power plants," Suh Kune-yull, an emeritus professor of nuclear engineering at Seoul National University, said, noting that submarine fuel options are not limited to highly enriched uranium and that higher enrichment mainly allows a reactor to operate longer before refueling.
South Korea therefore does not necessarily need the highly enriched uranium used by U.S. nuclear submarines, he said, although the fuel concentration ultimately chosen would have implications for reactor design, endurance and refueling requirements.
Suh also stressed that securing the fuel itself is only part of the issue.
"What to do with it afterward is another issue, and discussions would have to follow," Suh said, referring to the handling of spent nuclear fuel after its use aboard the submarines.
The IAEA notification moves Seoul's nuclear-powered submarine program into a more formal safeguards phase, but it resolves neither the technical details of that framework nor the more immediate question of fuel access.
Progress toward an operational submarine will ultimately depend on two negotiations moving forward in parallel: a detailed Article 14 arrangement with the IAEA and a separate deal with Washington that gives South Korea a viable source of nuclear fuel.
AJP Takeaways
- South Korea has formally started IAEA consultations on safeguards for its nuclear-powered submarine program.
- The main hurdle remains securing nuclear fuel through a separate agreement with the United States.
- Seoul must advance both IAEA safeguards talks and U.S. fuel negotiations before the program can move forward.
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