India and the US have moved significantly closer to implementing a landmark nuclear deal with the approval of an inspection plan by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
The Washington-New Delhi pact would reverse more than three decades of US policy. It calls for allowing the sale of atomic fuel and technology to India, a country that has not signed international nonproliferation accords — and has tested nuclear weapons.
To implement the deal, India must strike separate agreements with the IAEA and with the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NPG) of countries that export nuclear material. It would then go to the US Congress for approval.
Both capitals, New Delhi and Washington, hailed adoption of the so-called IAEA safeguards agreement on Friday, which will allow UN monitors access to 14 existing or planned Indian nuclear reactors by 2014.
“We believe this is important, not only for us and our bilateral relationship with India, but for rest of the world,” US State Department spokesman Gonzalo Gallegos told reporters in Washington.
The White House urged the NSG to act quickly, saying the administration expects to submit the deal to Congress later this year.
“This is an important day for India, and for our civil nuclear initiative for the resumption of India’s cooperation with our friends abroad,” Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said in the Sri Lankan capital, Colombo.
The IAEA’s 35-member board of governors approved the plan by consensus despite criticism that ambiguous wording could end up limiting international oversight of India’s reactors, possibly help supply India’s arms programs with fissile material and that it would lead to the undermining the international nonproliferation regime.
Energy agency chief Mohamed ElBaradei welcomed the agreement.
“It’s good for our collective effort to move toward a world free from nuclear weapons,” ElBaradei said.
Britain, in welcoming IAEA approval, said the US-India deal would make a “significant contribution to energy and climate security.”
But Austria said it had stood firm in its stance against nuclear energy and said it had joined other “like-minded” nations in requesting a legally binding list of nuclear facilities to be inspected. Diplomats who were in the meeting said Ireland and Switzerland also expressed concerns, among others.
In a statement, the Austrian Foreign Ministry also warned that the board’s approval did not in any way set a precedent for similar action by the NSG.
The NSG — to which the US belongs — bans exports of nuclear fuel and technology to nuclear weapons states like India and Pakistan that have not signed the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) and do not have full safeguard agreements allowing the IAEA to inspect their facilities.
But the group appears willing to consider a waiver for India, in part due to lobbying from Washington. Diplomats suggest a meeting could take place within weeks.
Anil Kakodkar, India’s Atomic Energy Commission chief, told reporters he hoped the group would grant New Delhi a “clean, unconditional exemption.”
Daryl Kimball of the Washington-based Arms Control Association urged the group to call on India to sign a legally binding ban on nuclear testing and to bar the transfer of uranium enrichment and plutonium processing technology, which could be used for making weapons.
While IAEA approval was largely expected, “the NSG is going to be much tougher,” Kimball said.
Iran, which is under international pressure over its nuclear program, was also among those with reservations about the plan. It is not a member of the board of governors but requested time to speak, alongside several other non-board members.
It expressed concern that the US was trying to set a precedent and pave the way for Israel — which also has not signed nonproliferation accords — to continue what Iran called “its clandestine weapons activities,” according an Iranian statement before the approval.
Ali Ashgar Soltanieh, Iran’s top representative to the UN agency, said in his speech that Tehran was worried about what he called a US double standard, and said it would continue to undermine the credibility, integrity and universality of the NPT.
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