Antinuclear

Abbott government made dangerous concession to India, in its rush to sell uranium

A former Australian diplomat and chairman of the International Atomic EnergyAgency (IAEA), Ronald Walker, said the agreement to sell uranium to India “drastically changes longstanding policy” on safeguards and risked playing “fast and loose” with nuclear weapons.

It differed substantially from Australia’s 23 other uranium export deals and “would do damage to the non-proliferation regime”, Walker told a hearing of the parliamentary joint standing committee on treaties this week.

The prime minister signed an agreement to make Australia a “long-term, reliable supplier of uranium to India” in Delhi in September, but the terms of the deal are yet to be endorsed by the committee.

Walker’s concerns were echoed by John Carlson, the head of the Australian Safeguards and Non-Proliferation Office (Asno) between 1989 and 2010, who said 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 program”, Carlson said…………

Walker pointed to 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”.

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”, Walker said.

“You can’t play fast and loose with nuclear weapons.”………

Along with Pakistan and North Korea, India was the only country still producing fissile material for nuclear weapons, he said, and was “engaged in a nuclear arms buildup, at a time when others are reducing their arsenals”.

“There is no justification to require less of India than our other partners,” he said……..

Walker said any safety concessions by Australia would affect the broader non-proliferation system………

The committee will produce a report on whether the uranium deal should be ratified, but the government is not obliged to adopt its recommendations. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/feb/13/australian-uranium-could-end-up-in-indias-nuclear-weapons-program

February 14, 2015 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | AUSTRALIA - NATIONAL, weapons and war