A U.S. nuclear expert says South Korea and the United States are unlikely to reach an agreement this year to revise their bilateral atomic energy agreement that expires in March 2014.

Miles Pomper, a senior research associate at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies, issued his assessment during a seminar held at the Korea Economic Institute in Washington Wednesday.

Pomper said it is unlikely that both South Korea and the U.S. will risk battles in their legislatures over politically sensitive issues this year ahead of presidential elections in both countries.

The nuclear expert explained that while South Korea wants an advanced accord on uranium enrichment and recycling spent nuclear fuel, the U.S. is concerned about the proliferation of technology that can be used to produce nuclear weapons.

Signed in 1974, the atomic energy accord bans South Korea from reprocessing spent nuclear fuel or transporting it to other countries without the United States’ consent.

The South wants to gain the right to reprocess spent nuclear fuel, saying that the used fuel from domestic nuclear power plants will reach a saturation point by 2016. However, the U.S. is reluctant to agree due to concerns of proliferation.