Australia and the Back Door

by CKR

PLS e-mailed from India last night. Apparently she hasn't been swallowed up by the floods.

She has just emerged from trekking in the mountains and is amazed to see the fight going on in parliament over the nuclear deal. She gives no details and says it's a story she can't do on the fly, so we'll have to wait for her to get home.

She did, however, say that Australia's willingness to sell uranium to India is undercutting any cooperation with the US that India might have been contemplating. I've actually added some of my interpretation into that; it's not exactly what she said, which was obviously done rather quickly.

I hadn't heard that development, so I did some googling.

The Guardian:

Howard's Cabinet agreed in principle on Tuesday to sell the nuclear fuel to India despite its refusal to sign the nonproliferation treaty. The government argues that nuclear power is key to curbing global warming as the Indian and Chinese economies' hunger for energy grow.

``Our officials will now enter into negotiations regarding the conditions,'' Howard said. ``We want to be satisfied that the uranium will only be used for peaceful purposes.''

Indian External Affairs Ministry spokesman Navtej Sarna confirmed that Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had agreed to start negotiations.

Earlier Thursday, Howard told Parliament that India would have to agree to international inspections of its nuclear power plants and complete the details of its nuclear partnership pact with the United States.

Washington and New Delhi have sealed a technical pact that details how nuclear cooperation between the world's two largest democracies will work.

That's an AP report, basically all the Western world of news is giving us. Forbes does a little better. The Australian press is more vocal.

Herald Sun:

Mr Howard said the exports would be subject to strict conditions, including guarantees that the uranium would only be used for generating electricity.

But Greens leader Bob Brown said the deal would lead to more nuclear weapons being created.

"The Indians have made it clear that this will free up their own uranium to go into nuclear weapons,'' Senator Brown said.

"This is fostering, and will foster, tension with Pakistan. Pakistan now wants our uranium.''

The Australian:

[Opposition leader Ken] Rudd said Australians were deeply concerned about India's use of uranium and the possibility of an escalating arms race on the Indian subcontinent.

"No one in Australia wants a nuclear arms race aided by us in the Indian subcontinent or between India and China," Mr Rudd told the ABC.

An op-ed in The Australian lays it out.

if we sell uranium to India we will be saying this simple thing to all members of the NPT: even if you test a nuclear weapon, there's no penalty because Australia and the US soon will be ready to supply you with nuclear materials such as uranium and nuclear know-how anyway.

This fatally undermines the whole logic and rationale for the NPT. Why be a member of the NPT if, like India, you are going to get the benefits of nuclear co-operation anyway? And, more immediately, how on earth do we excoriate, seek to isolate and apply sanctions to Iran, an NPT member, for seeking to develop nuclear weapons when Australia and the US are ready to supply nuclear materials to India, which has already tested nuclear weapons and is not an NPT member?

This is the "back door" that Peter Potman spoke of at the Carnegie Nonproliferation Conference. And it looks like Australia, or at least its prime minister, is ready to charge right through it.