Two moves in one statement
The government said it would look into claims that uranium is present in cobalt shipments bound for China. The tests are to be carried out by a national laboratory and an accredited international laboratory, and consultations are planned with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) (IAEA). That amounts to a state accepting an outside look at its own exports.[1]
In the same statement the government rejected the method of the investigation published in Nature Communications in late July with the Financial Times and Lighthouse Reports: it said the study is not based on direct measurements carried out on exported shipments, and called the presence of uranium in cobalt ore natural and well documented. The objection is aimed at where the measurement was taken.[1]
Who can confirm the denial?
The country supplies 68 per cent of the world's cobalt and the vast majority of it goes to China. At that scale an exporting state's own statement will not close anything on the buyer's side; the companies and regulators who decide whether a shipment moves want a result from a laboratory they recognise. That is the practical meaning of Kinshasa turning to an accredited outside laboratory and to the agency.[1]
A choice can be read into this: by determining where the measurement is taken, the government may be trying to keep the frame of the finding in its own hands. A plainer explanation is also available. If this kind of measurement requires accreditation, the national laboratory may not be sufficient on its own, and the second laboratory is a requirement. Who publishes the result will show which of the two readings holds.[1]