By Manish Chand, IANS
New Delhi : India is hopeful that Australia will take a positive view of uranium sales to India after the conclusion of a safeguards pact with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), with Canberra indicating that it had not yet closed the issue.
India began the fourth round of talks with the IAEA in Vienna Wednesday, which is expected to clinch a safeguards pact – a key step towards operationalising the India-US civil nuclear deal.
The conclusion of the pact with the IAEA will strengthen India’s hands in winning support of 45 members of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), a global regulatory body for nuclear commerce, especially those who have lingering reservations due to strong non-proliferation lobby in their countries such as Australia.
“We are hopeful that Australia will agree to sell uranium to India. Things should change after we do the IAEA pact,” an official source said.
“India’s ties with Australia are multi-faceted and growing. It’s our hope that Australia will back India in the NSG,” the source added.
Australia’s new Labor government led by Kevin Rudd Tuesday said it would not sell uranium to India because India has not signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
Australian Foreign Minister Stephen Smith, after talks with Shyam Saran, India’s special envoy on the India-US civil nuclear deal, said in Perth Tuesday that Australia would not sell uranium to India – a reversal of the in-principle approval by the previous John Howard government favouring uranium sales to India.
The Labor party had said in its election manifesto that if voted to power, it would not sell uranium to any country that had not signed the NPT.
However, a spokesman for Smith, quoted by The Age, an Australian daily, later hinted that the Australian government has yet to decide on whether to block uranium sales to India.
“The government has not yet made a decision on future steps on implementing the civil nuclear cooperation initiative, approval of the IAEA safeguards agreement when negotiated and consideration by the Nuclear Suppliers Group of an exception to the NSG guidelines to enable civil-nuclear cooperation with India,” he said.
After talks Tuesday, the Indian high commission said an “India-specific safeguards agreement” was being negotiated with the IAEA.
If successful, the agreement would be able to overcome Canberra’s concerns on uranium sales to India, it said.
The Minerals Council of Australia chose to play it safe, saying it was watching developments in India but added any decision on uranium sales was a matter to be decided by the federal government.
To appease the strong non-proliferation lobby, the Australian government, however, may insist that India signs a bilateral safeguards agreement with Australia, like China has done, before it decides to sell uranium to India.
Australia, the world’s second largest exporter of uranium, has 40 percent of the world’s total reserves. It has bilateral safeguards agreements with 16 NPT-signatory countries to which it sells uranium.
In the end, what could tip the balance in India’s favour is Canberra’s strong will to enhance business ties with one of the world’s fastest growing economies.
Australia’s Trade Minister Simon Crean, who is currently in India, underlined the Australian government’s commitment to facilitating India’s membership to the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation (APEC) forum – recognition of India’s rising global clout.
Crean sounded upbeat about burgeoning trade ties between the two counties. “Australia’s goods exports to India have been increasing at around 30 percent a year, making India our fastest growing export market,” he said in Mumbai Wednesday.
China’s positive attitude towards civil nuclear cooperation with India, as evident during Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s recent visit to Beijing, is also forcing a rethink in the Australian political establishment, especially as Canberra’s business ties with Beijing are growing by the minute.
“Events this week in Beijing show that China is serious about engaging a rising India. The question now is whether Australia is too,” Rory Medcalf, an Australian journalist, wrote in an opinion piece in The Age Wednesday.