Antinuclear

Australian news, and some related international items

Never mind Australia’s nuclear non-proliferation policy – Ferguson, Minister For The Uranium Industry is out to sabotage it

‘Opening up uranium sales to India would fuel the nuclear arms race under way between India and Pakistan, which has potentially catastrophic consequences,” ICAN’s Australian director, Tim Wright, said yesterday. ”The threat of a regional nuclear war between India and Pakistan is real. Selling uranium to India runs counter to Australia’s own security interests, and makes a mockery of its stated commitment to a world free of nuclear weapons.”

The briefing note was written after Mr Ferguson met Indian Foreign Minister S. M. Krishna in January…

The note was dated February 7, three days before The Age revealed a cable leaked to WikiLeaks that asserted Mr Ferguson had told the United States embassy in Canberra that a deal to supply India with nuclear fuel could be reached within three to five years.

Australia, India in talks over uranium sale, The Age, Michael Gordon, October 13, 2011 AUSTRALIA and India have already begun a ”dialogue” that is likely to canvass the sale of uranium to the nuclear-armed nation if Labor dumps its opposition to the trade at the party’s national conference in December.

A confidential briefing note to Resources Minister Martin Ferguson in February says the dialogue ”may prove a useful avenue to communicate any policy shifts on the issue” of uranium exports, which are banned to India under existing government and ALP policy.

”The dialogue could be elevated in the future as conditions allow agreement on exporting uranium to India,” the note from Mr Ferguson’s department says.

Mr Ferguson is expected to lead a push to ”modernise” Labor’s uranium policy at the conference, having declared earlier this year that India has a ”very, very good history of nuclear non-proliferation” despite its refusal to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty…..

The revelation of a formal dialogue has alarmed the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, which obtained the briefing note under freedom of information legislation.

”Opening up uranium sales to India would fuel the nuclear arms race under way between India and Pakistan, which has potentially catastrophic consequences,” ICAN’s Australian director, Tim Wright, said yesterday. ”The threat of a regional nuclear war between India and Pakistan is real. Selling uranium to India runs counter to Australia’s own security interests, and makes a mockery of its stated commitment to a world free of nuclear weapons.”

The briefing note was written after Mr Ferguson met Indian Foreign Minister S. M. Krishna in January.

It proposed a ”resources supply security dialogue” that, in the first instance, would involve only officials.

The note was dated February 7, three days before The Age revealed a cable leaked to WikiLeaks that asserted Mr Ferguson had told the United States embassy in Canberra that a deal to supply India with nuclear fuel could be reached within three to five years.

Under the existing government policy, uranium can only be exported to countries that are parties to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, have an additional protocol with the International Atomic Energy Agency, and with which Australia has a bilateral nuclear safeguards agreement…..

http://www.theage.com.au/national/australia-india-in-talks-over-uranium-sale-20111012-1ll0w.html#ixzz1ahmY9n00

October 13, 2011 - Posted by | AUSTRALIA - NATIONAL, politics international, uranium

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