Cooperation yes, uranium no: planned uranium sales to India would facilitate certain nuclear waste and risk and possible nuclear weapons

Dave Sweeney | Nuclear Free Campaigner, Australian Conservation Foundation | www.acf.org.au, 9 July 26

In response to news of a major uranium deal between Australia and India, the Australian Conservation Foundation’s Dave Sweeney said:

“There are serious and unresolved concerns about plans to elevate Australian uranium sales to India.

“For more than a decade there has been a civil nuclear cooperation agreement with India but regulatory concerns have constrained exports.

“A Joint Standing Committee on Treaties examination of the deal in September 2015 recommended a series of clear steps occur before any Australian uranium was supplied to India.

“It said important changes and checks and balances were needed, including independent review of India’s nuclear regulatory regime, improved safety standards, the full separation of India’s military and civil nuclear facilities, improved nuclear decommissioning planning and comprehensive on-site inspections from the International Atomic Energy Agency.

“These concerns remain relevant today. There are compelling reasons for Australia not to send uranium to India.

“Australian uranium would fuel radioactive risk and waste and potentially allow the diversion of domestic uranium reserves to fuel India’s nuclear weapons program in an already tense region.

Some in the Indian government basically have admitted as much, including the former head of New Delhi’s official National Security Advisory Board, K. Subrahmanyam who outlined to the Times of India that given ‘India’s uranium ore crunch, it is to India’s advantage to categorize as many power reactors as possible as civilian ones to be refuelled by imported uranium and conserve our native uranium fuel for weapon-grade plutonium production’.

“Australia regularly cites the importance of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, yet India – a nuclear weapons state – is not a signatory to the NPT.

“Australia should not facilitate atomic exceptionalism or risk in the region.

“Like Australia, India’s energy future is renewable, not radioactive. That is the policy area that the Australia and Indian prime ministers should be preferencing”.