Australia Defends Nuclear Plans With India; Critics Charge Nuclear Trade Would Violate Treaty

Australian Prime Minister John Howard today defended his decision to pursue uranium sales to India, reversing Australia’s policy of refusing nuclear trade with nations outside the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, Agence France-Presse reported (see GSN, Aug. 14).

With a pending U.S.-Indian deal now facing review by lawmakers in both countries, Australia’s federal Cabinet agreed Monday to follow suit.  The move follows a decision to sell uranium to China, a nuclear-weapon state that has joined the treaty (see GSN, Jan. 5).

“I think it will strike many Australians as very strange that it’s acceptable to sell uranium to China but it’s not — no matter what arrangements you have — to sell uranium to India,” Howard said.  No sales would take place before the U.S.-Indian agreement is complete or before India has accepted international safeguards over its civilian nuclear sector, he said.

India “has indicated that it does not intend to join the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, so we think it worthwhile finding practical ways to bring it into the nonproliferation mainstream,” Howard added, while praising India’s “very good nonproliferation track record” (Agence France-Presse/Yahoo!News, Aug. 16).

The decision has drawn fire from nuclear nonproliferation advocates who have raised legal questions about Australia’s nonproliferation obligations.

“This move flagrantly contradicts Australia's long-standing international nuclear nonproliferation commitments and should be reconsidered and reversed,” Arms Control Association head Daryl Kimball said in a release.

As a party to the South Pacific Nuclear Weapon-Free Zone Treaty, Australia agreed not to sell uranium “to any non-nuclear-weapon state unless subject to the safeguards required by Article 3.1 of the NPT,” according to the treaty’s terms.

Article 3 requires nuclear trade recipients who are not recognized as nuclear-weapon states by the treaty to allow international monitoring of all their nuclear facilities.

Under the U.S.-Indian deal, however, New Delhi has pledged to place its civilian nuclear program under international supervision, but it would keep its nuclear weapon activities out of sight.

“Because India has refused to place all of its reactors, plutonium separation, and uranium enrichment plants under international safeguards, the safeguards on a few additional facilities will do nothing to slow or stop the continued production of fissile material for nuclear weapons by India,” Kimball said (Arms Control Association release, Aug. 15).

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