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New NSG norms may put Indo-US nuke deal at risk
The Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG)—that controls global nuclear commerce—passed a new set of guidelines that can affect India's plans to acquire sensitive nuclear know-how and possibly jeopardize the Indo-US civilian nuclear deal of 2008. The decisions taken by the group have been posted on the group's website.
Evidence that the new norms are imminent also came on Friday from the US, whose spokesman Jay Carney lauded the decision of the 46-member NSG "to approve" new guidelines in a statement uploaded on the White House website.
The development comes despite hectic lobbying by India with NSG members. Earlier this week, an Indian official said New Delhi has "deep reservations" about any move that could affect its prospects to buy critical technology related to the enrichment and reprocessing (ENR) of spent nuclear fuel generated from civilian nuclear reactors.
The new criteria—among other conditions, it says ENR technology transfers will be allowed only if the recipient signs the nuclear non-proliferation treaty (NPT)—has the potential to directly hit the special exception granted to India in 2008 by NSG. The NSG waiver allowed India, as an exception, to buy power plants, equipment and technology from the international market. Access to reprocessing spent nuclear fuel and enriching fuel know-how was implicit in this exemption, said Rajeshwari Rajagopalan, senior fellow at New Delhi think-tank Observation Research Foundation. It came despite the country not signing NPT and not opening up all of its atomic reactors for international scrutiny.
The exemption was also part of a process that saw the removal of three-decade-old embargoes against nuclear commerce between India and the world—despite the country having conducted nuclear tests in 1974 and 1998. The NSG waiver was pushed through by the US, with which India worked out a significant bilateral pact in 2008 that opened the doors for the sale of US atomic plants to India. But more than anything else, the India-US pact was seen as the high watermark of the new relationship between the world's oldest and largest democracies.
In his statement, White House spokesman Carney said the US "welcomed" the NSG move to pass the new criteria "covering transfers of sensitive nuclear technologies used for the enrichment of uranium or the processing of spent nuclear fuel".
"This decision establishes agreed criteria that limit allowed transfers only to those nations in compliance with their non-proliferation obligations and that meet agreed standards for nuclear safeguards, safety and security," Carney said. "It further demonstrates the clear determination of nations to strengthen the international non-proliferation regime and build new frameworks for civil nuclear cooperation," said the statement, uploaded early Friday India time.
Lalit Mansingh, former Indian ambassador to the US, said it might be premature to react before the details are clear, but added that there could be serious consequences. "I think we should wait to see the fineprint before reacting. We need to seek a clarification from the NSG chair on whether India can buy ENR technologies. We also need a clarification from the US on this. If this issue is not resolved, it could cause a serious bilateral crisis. We need to resolve this before the visit of US secretary of state Hillary Clinton" for the India-US Strategic Dialogue on 19 July, Mansingh added.
That India was very concerned about the NSG move has been clear from the secret US diplomatic cables made public by the Internet whistleblower website WikiLeaks and published in The Hindu newspaper. In 2009, then Indian foreign secretary Shiv Shankar Menon wrote to US under secretary of state William Burns stating that an ENR ban at NSG constituted a "derogation" of the bilateral India-US civil nuclear pact. Later, foreign secretary Nirupama Rao, too, brought it up with her US interlocutors. Both instances were sourced to Wikileaks by The Hindu.
Overnight Friday, US state department spokesperson Victoria Nuland tried to assuage Indian concerns about new guidelines affecting the 2008 NSG waiver.
"The Obama administration fully supports the 'clean' Nuclear Suppliers Group exception for India and speedy implementation of the US-India Civil Nuclear Cooperation Agreement. Nothing about the new enrichment and reprocessing transfer restrictions agreed to by NSG members should be construed as detracting from the unique impact and importance of the US-India agreement or our commitment to full civil nuclear cooperation," she said in a statement posted on the state department's website.
"The NSG's NPT references, including those in the ENR guidelines, in no way detract from the exception granted to India by NSG members in 2008 and in no way reflect upon India's non-proliferation record," Nuland said, adding the US was fully committed to expanding civil nuclear cooperation with India.