Skip to main content

Ex-IAEA chairman throws spanner on Aussie-India N-deal, says India could use enriched uranium for armaments

By Our Representative
Seeking to throwing a spanner on India-Australia nuclear deal for the supply of uranium, which was clinched during Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s India visit in September 2014, former chairman of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Ronald Walker, has “warned” the Aussie authorities that the agreement to sell uranium to India “drastically changes longstanding policy” on safeguards, and risks playing “fast and loose” with nuclear weapons.
Speaking at a hearing of the Australian parliamentary joint standing committee on treaties, Walker said, the deal differs “substantially” from Australia’s 23 other uranium export deals and “would do damage to the non-proliferation regime.” A former Australian diplomat, he said the Aussie Prime Minister “signed an agreement to make Australia a long-term, reliable supplier of uranium to India in Delhi, but the terms of the deal are yet to be endorsed by the committee.”
The British Guardian, reporting on the development, said, “Walker’s concerns were echoed by John Carlson, the head of the Australian Safeguards and Non-Proliferation Office (Asno) between 1989 and 2010, who had said earlier that proceeding with the agreement would be “inexcusable”. Its provisions meant Australian material “could be used to produce unsafeguarded plutonium that ends up in India’s nuclear weapon programme”, Carlson had said.
While the daily quotes a senior foreign affairs official in Australia defending the deal, arguing that India had “unique circumstances and any departures from standard agreements achieve the same policy outcomes but in different ways”, Walker insisted, there were “new wording on the question of whether India needed prior consent to enrich Australian uranium imports”, which he said was “open to the interpretation that Australia has given its consent in advance to high-level enrichment unconditionally”.
Pointing out that “highly enriched uranium can be used in nuclear weapons, as well as to produce energy”, Walker, who has been a diplomat, said, in the treaty’s current form, “Australia does not claim and India does not acknowledge a right to withhold consent [to enrichment] and to withdraw consent if it is dissatisfied.” He warned, “You can’t play fast and loose with nuclear weapons.”
Pointing out that “the safeguards demanded of India were much less stringent than in similar deals Australia had struck with China, the US and Japan”, Walker said, “Along with Pakistan and North Korea, India was the only country still producing fissile material for nuclear weapons and was engaged in a nuclear arms buildup, at a time when others are reducing their arsenals” and “there is no justification to require less of India than our other partners.”
Walker further said any safety concessions by Australia would affect the broader non-proliferation system. “What Australia concedes on safeguards, Canada will find it difficult to try to maintain. If Canada and Australia fold in their safeguards negotiation with India, India’s negotiating position against the Americans is improved”, he said.
Contradicting Walker, the current director-general of Asno, Robert Floyd, defended the treaty at a hearing saying, neither Australia nor India viewed the terms of the treaty as allowing Delhi to enrich uranium unconditionally. Consent to enrich had merely been granted in advance under strict circumstances to guarantee stability for India’s nuclear fuel cycle. Besides, India was subject to IAEA inspections at a greater “frequency and intensity” than countries that had signed up to the nuclear non-proliferation treaty.

Comments

TRENDING

Reducing emission? India among top nations whose coal as energy source going up

By NS Venkataraman*  The State of the Global Climate report by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) confirmed that the year 2023 was the warmest year on record, with the global temperature of 1.4 degree celsius above pre-industrial 1850-1900 base line.

Lockdown 'total failure' of science more than of politics: Open letter on 4th anniversary

Counterview Desk  In an open letter to fellow academicians, scientists and medical practitioners in India, marking the fourth anniversary of India's lockdown (25 March 2024), the Managing Committee* of the Universal Health Organisation (UHO) has insisted on the need to "repair two years of immense damage to science".

Insider plot to kill Deendayal Upadhyay? What RSS pracharak Balraj Madhok said

By Shamsul Islam*  Balraj Madhok's died on May 2, 2016 ending an era of old guards of Hindutva politics. A senior RSS pracharak till his death was paid handsome tributes by the RSS leaders including PM Modi, himself a senior pracharak, for being a "stalwart leader of Jan Sangh. Balraj Madhok ji's ideological commitment was strong and clarity of thought immense. He was selflessly devoted to the nation and society. I had the good fortune of interacting with Balraj Madhok ji on many occasions". The RSS also issued a formal condolence message signed by the Supremo Mohan Bhagwat on behalf of all swayamsevaks, referring to his contribution of commitment to nation and society. He was a leading RSS pracharak on whom his organization relied for initiating prominent Hindutva projects. But today nobody in the RSS-BJP top hierarchy remembers/talks about Madhok as he was an insider chronicler of the immense degeneration which was spreading as an epidemic in the high echelons of th

Magnetic, stunning, Protima Bedi 'exposed' malice of sexual repression in society

By Harsh Thakor*  Protima Bedi was born to a baniya businessman and a Bengali mother as Protima Gupta in Delhi in 1949. Her father was a small-time trader, who was thrown out of his family for marrying a dark Bengali women. The theme of her early life was to rebel against traditional bondage. It was extraordinary how Protima underwent a metamorphosis from a conventional convent-educated girl into a freak. On October 12th was her 75th birthday; earlier this year, on August 18th it was her 25th death anniversary.

Savarkar 'criminally betrayed' Netaji and his INA by siding with the British rulers

By Shamsul Islam* RSS-BJP rulers of India have been trying to show off as great fans of Netaji. But Indians must know what role ideological parents of today's RSS/BJP played against Netaji and Indian National Army (INA). The Hindu Mahasabha and RSS which always had prominent lawyers on their rolls made no attempt to defend the INA accused at Red Fort trials.

'Wrong direction': Paris NGO regrets MNC ArcelorMittal still using coal-based steel

By Rajiv Shah  A new report by Paris-based non-governmental research and campaigning organization, Reclaim Finance, has blamed the MNC ArcelorMittal – formed in 2006 following the takeover and merger of the western European steel maker Arcelor (Spain, France, and Luxembourg) by Indian-owned Mittal Steel – for using use “climate destructive” metallurgical coal for its projects in India.

'Flawed' argument: Gandhi had minimal role, naval mutinies alone led to Independence

Counterview Desk Reacting to a Counterview  story , "Rewiring history? Bose, not Gandhi, was real Father of Nation: British PM Attlee 'cited'" (January 26, 2016), an avid reader has forwarded  reaction  in the form of a  link , which carries the article "Did Atlee say Gandhi had minimal role in Independence? #FactCheck", published in the site satyagrahis.in. The satyagraha.in article seeks to debunk the view, reported in the Counterview story, taken by retired army officer GD Bakshi in his book, “Bose: An Indian Samurai”, which claims that Gandhiji had a minimal role to play in India's freedom struggle, and that it was Netaji who played the crucial role. We reproduce the satyagraha.in article here. Text: Nowadays it is said by many MK Gandhi critics that Clement Atlee made a statement in which he said Gandhi has ‘minimal’ role in India's independence and gave credit to naval mutinies and with this statement, they concluded the whole freedom struggle.

A Hindu alternative to Valentine's Day? 'Shiv-Parvati was first love marriage in Universe'

By Rajiv Shah*   The other day, I was searching on Google a quote on Maha Shivratri which I wanted to send to someone, a confirmed Shiv Bhakt, quite close to me -- with an underlying message to act positively instead of being negative. On top of the search, I chanced upon an article in, imagine!, a Nashik Corporation site which offered me something very unusual. 

Attack on foreign students: Gujarat varsity's reputation, ranking at stake, say academics

Counterview Desk  Expressing anguish over the attack on international students in Gujarat University hostels, a letter claimed to have been signed by 122 current and former academics has asked the Gujarat Vice Chancellor, Dr Neerja Gupta, to provide emotional support to the attacked students and to ensure their physical safety.  

As double engine takes backseat in Odisha, BJP is pitted against 'firmly rooted' BJD

By Sudhansu R Das  BJP has got 25 years to build its party base in Odisha. After 25 years, it felt helpless and insecure to fight elections on its own strength. The party was almost crazy to have an alliance with the ruling BJD in Odisha.  Looking for alliance at the time of election shows that the party has not groomed its grassroots level workers into potential leaders.  The state BJP leaders woke up and convinced the Central leaders that they are capable of going solo; the alliance was stillborn. The question is can BJP defeat BJD which is firmly rooted in Odisha after launching piles of populist programs in the state.