By Arun Kumar, IANS
Washington : A leading critic of the India-US civil nuclear deal has asked the US Congress and nuclear supplier states “to stand up to the White House” to fix what he called a ‘deeply flawed’ agreement.
The recently concluded bilateral 123 agreement to implement the deal “contradicts long-standing US nuclear export policies and threatens the global non-proliferation order,” said Daryl G. Kimball, executive director of Arms Control Association (ACA) editorially in the September issue of its publication.
The proposed agreement endorses undefined “India-specific” safeguards and fails to explicitly state that renewed Indian testing would lead to a termination of US nuclear trade, he writes in Arms Control Today in an editorial titled “Fixing a Flawed Nuclear Deal”.
Noting that the deal must still clear several more difficult political hurdles at the International Atomic Energy Agency, the 45-nation Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), and in the US Congress, he says they must use their authority to get straight answers to their many questions about the deal.
“Much is at stake,” Kimball writes. In the coming months, Congress and the NSG “can prevent further damage by using their authority to close the loopholes in the deeply flawed US-Indian agreement.”
The pact promises India assurances of nuclear fuel supply and advance consent to carry out sensitive nuclear activities that are unprecedented and inconsistent with legislation approved by Congress last year, he said.
“The sum of these and other US concessions could give India – a country that has violated past agreements on peaceful nuclear cooperation by testing a nuclear weapon-terms of nuclear trade more favourable than those for states that have assumed all the obligations and responsibilities of the nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT), which India has never signed,” Kimball said.
While many NSG member states support India’s legitimate nuclear energy goals, they are also deeply uncomfortable with the agreement and for good reason. Partial safeguards in India are hardly worth their estimated $10 million annual cost, he said.
Yet, the US-Indian agreement cheapens their value by endorsing the concept of India-specific safeguards and allowing India to take unspecified “corrective measures” if fuel supplies are disrupted. Congress and the NSG should reject any proposal for non-standard safeguards for Indian reactors.
Unlike other nuclear cooperation agreements, the US-Indian deal fails to clearly state that a resumption of nuclear testing would lead to a termination of nuclear transfers and the return of US-supplied equipment and material, Kimball noted.
To protect its testing options, India sought and got an unprecedented US commitment to help India amass a strategic reserve of nuclear fuel to guard against any supply disruption. Incredibly, the agreement also commits Washington to help New Delhi secure fuel supplies from other countries even if India resumes testing.
Officials at the Department of State may argue that the fuel supply assurances are political and not legal commitments and are there only to assuage Indian domestic audiences, but “this is not how the Indian government interprets the agreement” Kimball noted.
“Such ambiguity has no place in international non-proliferation rules. Congress and the NSG should clearly establish that any India-specific exemption from existing nuclear trade rules shall be terminated if India resumes testing,” he said.
US negotiators also agreed to allow for possible future trade involving sensitive nuclear technology, including uranium-enrichment and plutonium-reprocessing-related goods. Even if such transfers are destined for safeguarded facilities, they could be replicated and used to support India’s weapons programme. The NSG should specifically bar such transfers to India, Kimball suggested.
Even though India has refused to put existing reprocessing plants under safeguards, India also won long-term consent to reprocess US-origin nuclear fuel. To exercise the right, an additional US-Indian agreement governing a new, safeguarded reprocessing facility is required. Still, the reprocessing concession could allow India to negotiate more favourable terms from less scrupulous suppliers, such as Russia, he said.
Unless the NSG also requires that India halts fissile material production for weapons as a condition for nuclear trade, supplying nuclear fuel to India for power production would free up its limited domestic supplies for bomb production, Kimball said.
“This would not only contradict NPT restrictions barring assistance to other ‘s nuclear weapons programmes, but it would prompt neighbouring Pakistan to increase its fissile material production capacity.
“The US-Indian agreement may lead usually sensible states to ignore their legal commitments too,” he said noting that Australia has announced it is ready to sell uranium to India “without full scope safeguards” as provided by NPT.
“Rather than sidestep their own non-proliferation policies and laws, leaders in Congress and other capitals should maintain common sense conditions on nuclear trade that help ensure India meets the same standards expected of other responsible countries.
“Now is the time to stand up to the White House and the nuclear profiteers and prevent further erosion of the already beleaguered non-proliferation system,” Kimball said.