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Doors Wide Open For Nuclear Technology Exports to India
Dr Banerjee and
Sir Richard shake on the deal. Picture: DAE
BY
PRAKASH JOSHI
NEW
DELHI (IDN) – The door has finally been thrown open for a free flow of
nuclear exports to India. The four nuclear weapons states -- USA,
Russia, France and Britain -- have lifted a ban on atomic cooperation
with the world’s largest democracy, ending India's nuclear isolation
since it tested a nuclear device in 1974.
India and Britain signed a joint declaration February 12 in New Delhi on
cooperation in civil nuclear energy after two years of negotiations.
India had already signed similar civil nuclear cooperation agreements
with the U.S., Russia and France.
The statement was signed by Srikumar Banerjee, chairman of India's
Atomic Energy Commission and secretary of the Department of Atomic
Energy (DAE), and Richard Stagg, British High Commissioner to India.
"The declaration will help promotion and facilitation of
wide-ranging cooperation in the nuclear field including in nuclear trade
and also between scientific institutions of the two countries," the
DAE said in a statement.
Details of the declaration were not released, but informed sources said
it was likely to lead to increased nuclear-related exports from Britain
to India.
The declaration did not come as a surprise. The British business
secretary Lord Mandelson and Indian minister for commerce Anand Sharma
conferred in London one week ahead of the New Delhi declaration, during
a meeting of the UK-India Joint Economic Trade Committee.
They announced then that the text of the declaration had been finalised.
Mandelson said: "There's absolutely no reason why it shouldn't be
signed next week. It just needs the ministerial go-ahead and it's there
waiting to be signed." He added, "We shouldn't delay it any
longer."
British support for the deal was signaled in January 2008, during a
visit to India by Prime Minister Gordon Brown. He expressed support for
the U.S.-India deal and that he would work with his Indian counterpart
Manmohan Singh to agree a civil nuclear cooperation deal. A joint
statement said that the two countries would "work
expeditiously" towards a bilateral agreement on civil nuclear
energy.
THE DECISION
In the wake of the decision by the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) to
allow the transfer of 'trigger list' items to India for peaceful
purposes, Britain lifted its ban on nuclear-related exports to India in
November 2008.
The NSG, which had 46 members as of 2009, was founded in 1974 in
response to the Indian nuclear test earlier in that year. The test
demonstrated that certain non-weapons specific nuclear technology could
be readily turned to weapons development.
A series of meetings in London from 1975 to 1978 resulted in agreements
on the guidelines for export, these were published as INFCIRC/254
(essentially the ‘trigger list’) by the International Atomic Energy
Agency (IAEA).
Listed items could only be exported to non-nuclear states if certain
IAEA safeguards were agreed to or if exceptional circumstances relating
to safety existed.
The NSG did not meet again until 1991. The ‘trigger list’ remained
unchanged until 1991. The revelations about the Iraqi weapons program
following the first ‘Gulf War’ led to a tightening of the export of
so-called dual-use equipment.
At the first meeting since 1978, held at the Hague in March 1991, the
twenty-six members agreed to the changes, which were published as the
‘Dual-use List’ in 1992, and also to the extension of the original
list to more closely match the up-to-date list. A regular series of
plenary meetings was also arranged as was the regular updating of the
two key lists.
Initially the NSG had seven members, Canada, the then West Germany,
France, Japan, the then Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United
States. In 1976-77, membership was expanded to fifteen with the
admittance of Belgium, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Italy, the
Netherlands, Poland, Sweden, and Switzerland.
Germany was reunited in 1990 while Czechoslovakia broke up into the
Czech Republic and Slovakia in 1993.
Twelve more nations joined up to 1990. Following the collapse of the
Soviet Union a number of former republics have been given observer
status as a stage towards future membership. China became a member in
2004. The European Commission participates as an observer. The 2009/2010
NSG Chair is Hungary.
NPT
UK policy since 2002 had been to refuse all licence applications for the
transfer of items which could potentially have nuclear uses to India
because of that country's status as a non-signatory of the Nuclear
non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
Such items, which appear on the NSG's trigger list can only be
transferred to a country with full non-proliferation safeguards to
ensure that they are indeed used for peaceful purposes.
However, after India finalised a wide-ranging safeguards agreement with
the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) earlier in 2008, the NSG
decided in September to permit such items to be transferred to India.
Since the NPT entered into force in 1970, three states that were not
parties to the Treaty have conducted nuclear tests: India, Pakistan, and
North Korea. North Korea had been a party to the NPT but withdrew in
2003. Israel is also widely believed to have nuclear weapons, though it
has refused to confirm or deny this.
The status of these nations is not formally recognised by international
bodies as none of them are currently parties to the NPT. South Africa
has the unique status of a nation that developed nuclear weapons but has
since disassembled its arsenal before joining the NPT.
Meanwhile, India has not only signed civil nuclear cooperation
agreements with the U.S., Russia and France but also with Argentina,
Kazakhstan (both NPG members), Mongolia and Namibia. It has also
negotiated a cooperation agreement with Canada, which has yet to be
signed.
Reports from London said the New Delhi Declaration had paved the way for
an international conference. The agreement will result in India
attending a Nuclear New Build Conference in London between March 1-3,
along with nuclear business and political leaders from 15 countries,
including the United Arab Emirates, reports said.
India outlined its nuclear power ambitions on December 2, 2008
reaffirming its vision of becoming a world leader in nuclear technology
due to its expertise in fast reactors and thorium fuel cycle.
India has a flourishing and largely indigenous nuclear power program and
expects to have 20,000 MWe nuclear capacity on line by 2020 and 63,000
MWe by 2032. It aims to supply 25 percent of electricity from nuclear
power by 2050. (MWe is an abbreviation of Megawatt electric; electric
output of a power plant in megawatt.)
The lifting of the ban on foreign technology and fuel is expected to
boost India's nuclear power plans considerably. But Indian officials say
that all plants will have high indigenous engineering content.
[Source:
IDN-InDepthNews
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