Uranium sale to India: Downer dismisses proliferation concerns

By NNN-PTi

Melbourne : Australia Monday dismisses concerns raised by a former UN weapons inspector on exporting uranium to India, saying it did not think the sale would free up the country’s other reserves for weapons development.


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Hans Blix had said Australian uranium sales could make it easier for India to use its own uranium to create bomb-grade material, which would lead to heightened tensions in the region. Safeguards would be needed against that risk, he said.

Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said he does not think the sale would free up India’s other resources for weapons development, ABC radio reported.

Dismissing the proliferation fears expressed by Blix, Downer said the same argument could also be advanced for other countries Australia exports to.

“If the argument is we shouldn’t export uranium to any country that has nuclear weapons, I don’t think that’s right,” he told the ABC.

“I think they’d have nuclear weapons anyway, whether we exported uranium or not,” Downer said.

Blix, the former UN chief weapons inspector, said in an interview to ‘The Age’ Monday that he supported Australian uranium exports to India, but only for energy production.

The veteran Swedish diplomat, who was here to address a UN function, led UN weapons inspections in Iraq in the lead-up to the 2003 war. After the invasion, he criticised the US and Britain for exaggerating the case for war over weapons of mass destruction.

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