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U.S.-Indian Deal Would Violate NPT, Critics Say By David Ruppe WASHINGTON — The Bush administration’s proposed U.S.-Indian nuclear cooperation agreement would violate the 1970 Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, 10 bipartisan U.S. nonproliferation experts and former senior government officials wrote in a letter to Congress released yesterday (see GSN, June 15). The deal, still under negotiation, would have the United States pursue exceptions for India to U.S. export control laws and multinational Nuclear Suppliers Group export restrictions. In exchange India would open some nuclear facilities to international safeguards to ensure they are not used for military purposes. Congress must sign off on the agreement. The proposed agreement, the critics wrote, would benefit India’s nuclear weapons program by “free[ing] up India’s limited domestic nuclear fuel making capacity to produce highly enriched uranium and plutonium for weapons.” “By the Indian government’s own admission, its military and civil nuclear programs are ‘inextricably’ linked, so if we assist one we assist the other,” the letter’s bipartisan authors wrote. They include former U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission member Victor Gilinsky, former U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency Director and Undersecretary of State John Holum, former Defense Department Deputy for Nonproliferation Policy Henry Sokolski and former Assistant Defense Secretary Henry Rowen. The letter responded to a State Department assertion that the proposed deal would not violate the treaty’s core Article 1 requirement that members not “in any way … assist, encourage, or induce any non-nuclear weapon state to manufacture or otherwise acquire nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices.” India has not signed the treaty, and is not recognized in the pact as a legitimate nuclear weapons state. The State Department in a June 5 letter to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee said the agreement would not violate Article 1 even if foreign fuel supplies “could allow India to devote its domestic uranium substantially or even exclusively to its weapons program.” It conceded foreign uranium supplies could “arguably relieve India of its reliance on domestic uranium for energy production,” but asserted: “Nothing in the NPT, its negotiating history, or the practice of the parties supports the notion that fuel supply to safeguarded reactors for peaceful purposes could be construed as ‘assisting in the manufacture of nuclear weapons’ for purposes of Article 1.” Sokolski and Natural Resources Defense Council senior analyst Christopher Paine, in an appendix accompanying the letter, wrote that after India tested a nuclear device in 1974, “hundreds of members of Congress, of both parties, were opposed to continuing the supply of U.S. fuel to [India’s] Tarapur reactors precisely because they believed full-scope safeguards in nonweapons states are required to faithfully carry out the U.S. NPT obligation under Article 1.” They wrote that the proposed deal could enable India to channel all of its current and future uranium enrichment into the nuclear weapons program, “thereby clearly aiding India in the manufacture of higher-yield-to-volume (or yield-to-weight) thermonuclear weapons suitable for long-range missile delivery, and violating the U.S. obligation under Article 1 of the NPT.” The critics’ letter says that the State Department “construes the meaning of the NPT so narrowly as to render it meaningless,” and that “partial safeguards in a state with a secret nuclear weapons program are more symbol than substance.” It says: “India may not have to comply with the NPT, but the United States, as a signatory to the NPT, has a solemn responsibility not only to discourage proliferation by others, but to refrain from assisting other states’ nuclear weapons program in any way. The current proposal would breach this central provision of the treaty.” Reuters reported today that U.S. lawmakers are preparing deal-enabling legislation that is expected to be voted on by the House International Relations Committee and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee next week. It said at least one of the pieces of legislation would authorize Bush to exempt India from U.S. export control restrictions even before the two countries agree upon the terms of the deal. Congress later would vote, once terms are agreed upon, whether to approve the deal. Citing unidentified diplomats, Reuters reported yesterday the United States is hoping Group of Eight member countries meeting in July will issue a statement supporting the proposed deal. Four of the members are believed opposed or neutral, it reported.
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