India trade talks set for second round
26 August 2008
Last week's talks at the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) were adjourned leaving a second meeting in early September key to the Indian nuclear trade initiative.
The 'extraordinary plenary meeting' took place under German chairmanship in Vienna, Austria on 21 and 22 August. Although NSG proceedings are carried out in confidence, it is understood that a number of nations including Austria, Denmark, Ireland, Finland, New Zealand, Norway and Sweden raised amendments to the proposals tabled by the USA. Leading nuclear countries including France, Russia and the UK are known to be strong supporters of the original proposal.
For their part, Indian leaders said that they want no extra requirements placed on them, having already agreed a specific safeguards agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). US negotiators said they remained confident in their proposals and that they expected objectors' concerns to be eliminated at a 3-5 September meeting.
The 45 members of the NSG restrict trade in potentially sensitive nuclear technologies to other nations that have signed the Nuclear non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). In practice this means only India, Israel, Pakistan and North Korea are excluded from trade in uranium, nuclear fuel and nuclear reactor technologies.
The creation of the NSG was a reaction to India's 1974 test of an atomic weapon made with the help of technology which had been sold for peaceful uses only. Together with the NPT and the work of the IAEA, the NSG guidelines have ensured a clear divide between civil and military uses of nuclear energy ever since.
The amendment of NSG guidelines would trigger a rush of cooperation agreements with leading nuclear energy states. Those could be followed by commercial contracts in nuclear power with Indian firms entering the global market as both buyers and sellers. This would help India rapidly advance its existing self sufficient nuclear science, skills and technology base as well as to gain access to much more secure supplies of uranium for its power reactor fleet.