Concerns Raised About Indian Nuclear Trade Document

A draft version of the Nuclear Suppliers Group agreement on atomic trade with India does not set specific conditions that the nation must meet to ensure that it continues to have access to material and technology, Reuters reported today (see GSN, Aug. 13).

The Washington-based Arms Control Association obtained a copy of the document, which the United States submitted Aug. 6 to current NSG chair Germany.

The waiver would allow members of the 45-nation group to conduct nuclear trade with India for the first time in 34 years, even though New Delhi has not signed the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and does not permit international oversight of all of its nuclear facilities.

The document does not identify specific actions that would necessitate a review of the exemption, such as another Indian nuclear test or restricting access to nuclear inspectors.  Instead, it says that NSG nations “have taken note of steps that India has taken voluntarily,” including a nonbinding suspension of nuclear testing and pledging to allow inspections of all civilian nuclear sites (Boris Groendahl, Reuters/Washington Post, Aug. 14).

“There don’t seem to be any conditions,” one diplomat from a NSG nation told the Economic Times.

An earlier version of the document said that nuclear trade would be maintained only if “India continues to fully meet” nonproliferation obligations, the Times reported.

The Nuclear Suppliers Group is expected to first consider the plan on Aug. 21-22, with another session expected in September, according to diplomats (Economic Times, Aug. 14).

“The current U.S. proposal should be flatly rejected by other NSG member states as unsound and irresponsible,” the Arms Control Association said.  “If NSG states agree under pressure from an outgoing U.S. administration to blow a hole in NSG guidelines in order to allow a few states to profit from reactor and nuclear fuel and technology sales to India, they should at a minimum, support common sense restrictions and conditions on such trade.”

Those restrictions by NSG countries, the association said, should include:

—Ending nuclear trade with India and demanding the return of unused nuclear fuel should the nation test another nuclear weapon or violate safeguards deals with the International Atomic Energy Agency;

—Banning trade in reprocessing, enrichment or heavy-water production material or technology, which could be put to military use;

—Urging India to declare that it was no longer producing fissile material and to join the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty; and

—Actively opposing “any arrangement that would give India any special safeguards exemptions that would in any way be inconsistent with the principle of permanent safeguards over all nuclear materials and facilities.  NSG states should not take any decision unless India and the IAEA conclude a meaningful Additional Protocol to supplement its new facility specific safeguards agreement” (Arms Control Association release, Aug. 13).

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