Antinuclear

Quiet shipment of uranium from Australia to India – non signatory to Non-Proliferation Treaty

Australia quietly makes first uranium shipment to India three years after supply agreement, ABC Radio The World Today By South Asia correspondent James Bennett, 18 Jul 17 Three years after signing a civilian nuclear supply treaty, the Federal Government confirmed overnight the first shipment of Australian uranium has left for India.

Foreign Minister Julie Bishop provided little detail about the inaugural sale, saying only that it was subject to commercial negotiations.

The supply deal with India, signed in 2014, is the first of its kind Australia has made with a country not party to the nuclear non-proliferation treaty…….

Details of inaugural shipment unclear

It is not clear how big the shipment is, where it departed from, or where in India it might be heading.

Indian officials were unable to immediately provide comment, while the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade said only that the details were subject to commercial negotiation.

Parliament only passed the final legislation enabling sales last December, following years of debate about supplying uranium to a country with a strategic nuclear weapons program and that refuses to sign the non-proliferation treaty.

Parliamentary hearings to ratify the supply treaty in 2014 heard the International Atomic Energy Agency still had concerns about India’s safeguards.

Ongoing tensions between India and its neighbour Pakistan, which also has not signed the non-proliferation treaty, have raised the spectre of armed confrontation in the past……..http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-07-19/australia-quietly-makes-first-uranium-shipment-to-india/8722108

July 19, 2017 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | AUSTRALIA - NATIONAL, politics international, uranium