Latest U.S.-Indian Nuclear Talks Produce No Deal

U.S.-Indian talks this week failed “to bridge the remaining gaps” between the nations’ efforts to conclude a nuclear trade agreement, an Indian spokesman said (see GSN, May 22).

Technical experts from both countries met Monday and Tuesday in London to discuss solutions to the impasse that has stalled a U.S. effort to sell nuclear technology and materials to India.  Indian officials have objected to some of the nuclear nonproliferation measures contained in a U.S. law enabling the deal.

“We clarified certain concepts and exchanged ideas on making further progress toward a mutually agreed text,” Indian Foreign Ministry spokesman Navtej Sarna said in New Delhi.

U.S. Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns had planned to finalize the deal this month in New Delhi, but that visit has been postponed and the next meeting has not been scheduled, the Associated Press reported (Matthew Rosenberg, Associated Press, May 23).

Meanwhile a top Indian nuclear official said the nation would not budge from its insistence to pursue plutonium production from spent nuclear power plant fuel, the Hindu reported today.

One of the U.S. demands for the bilateral agreement is to have the right to prevent India from separating plutonium from U.S.-supplied fuel. 

Washington would probably accede to India’s wish on this issue, said Anil Kakodkar, chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission.

“Recycling had been followed as a consistent policy since the beginning of India's nuclear program as it reduces waste to a very small amount and makes it possible to derive 60 to 80 per cent more energy from the same,” he said.

Construction of an Indian “breeder” reactor, designed to produce greater amounts of plutonium in its spent fuel than other reactor designs, would be completed by 2011, Kakodkar said (see GSN, March 10, 2006; Antara Das, Hindu, May 23).

Elsewhere, a senior Australian vowed not to sell uranium to India until the South Asian nation joins the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, the Press Trust of India reported.

“The answer is no,” said Federal Resources Minister Ian Macfarlane.  “The Australian uranium industry can prosper without India, that’s my answer.”

“We have a prohibition on the basis they have not signed the NPT,” he added.

The statement appeared at odds to earlier remarks by Prime Minister John Howard, who suggested earlier this year that he was open to considering uranium sales to India (see GSN, March 29; Press Trust of India, May 23).

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