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[1] The Nuclear Deal And Democracy By Suvrat Raju http://www.countercurrents.org/raju100708.htm The Indian government is trying to show the world that it can quash domestic dissent to meet international expectations Why Bangladesh Should Not Be Audited By International Bodies By Saleem Samad http://www.countercurrents.org/samad100708.htm Bangladesh? s present military-driven government has made many promises and taken many initiatives, but failed to perform neutrally and satisfactorily, with good governance, transparency and accountability ------------ [2] From: "Sukla Sen" <sukla.sen@gmail.com Date: Thu Jul 10, 2008 9:34 pm Subject: End of Neo-Liberalism? http://www.bworldonline.com/BW071008/content.php? id=144 The end of neo-liberalism? By Joseph E. Stiglitz First Published: July 7, 2008 The world has not been kind to neo-liberalism, that grab-bag of ideas based on the fundamentalist notion that markets are self-correcting, allocate resources efficiently, and serve the public interest well. It was this market fundamentalism that underlay Thatcherism, Reaganomics, and the so-called "Washington Consensus" in favor of privatization, liberalization, and independent central banks focusing single-mindedly on inflation. ----------------- [3] From: "Sukla Sen" <sukla.sen@gmail.com Date: Fri Jul 11, 2008 10:25 am Subject: Action Alert: Open Letter to Barack Obama on Threat to Iran Click here to sign the letter: < http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/ObamaIran/<;http://www.ipetitions.com/petition\ /ObamaIran/%3E <http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/ObamaIran/ An Open Letter to Barack Obama on Iran Dear Senator Obama, --------------- [4] From: Regi P George <george_regi@yahoo.com Date: Sat Jul 12, 2008 12:52 am Subject: Prime Minister's Disregard For Parliament Prime Minister's Disregard For Parliament The following is the text of the press release issued by the Communist Party of India (Marxist) on July 1, 2008. The prime minister has repeated once again that the government will seek the sense of parliament after the Safeguards Agreement is approved by the Board of the International Atomic Energy Agency and the waiver is got from the Nuclear Suppliers Group. What does this proposal amount to? Here are some of the facts: The 123 agreement was signed between India and the United States in July 2007. This agreement was not put before parliament before it was signed. As soon as the text of the 123 agreement was made public, the Left parties and other political parties, which represent a majority in parliament, came out against it. After the 123 agreement was signed as per the India-US nuclear deal, the next steps to be taken to operationalise the agreement are: 1) India going to the IAEA for the Safeguards Agreement 2) the US approaching the Nuclear Suppliers Group for getting India a waiver from the guidelines. The government has gone to the IAEA and negotiated a Safeguards Agreement. The text of this agreement has not been shown either to the UPA-Left committee or made public. The government now insists on going ahead for getting the Board's approval without anyone seeing the text or the UPA-Left committee giving its concurrence. As per the prime minister's proposal, the government should be allowed to take the next step of getting the Nuclear Suppliers Group's waiver. After both the steps taken for operationalisation of the deal, the prime minister promises to take the sense of parliament. This would mean a fait accompli, as the only step left would be the vote in the US Congress. We wish to point out that already in December 2007, both the houses of parliament comprehensively discussed the 123 agreement. It is on record that except for the UPA parties, all other parties which constitute the majority expressed reservations about the 123 agreement and urged the government not to proceed further. Hence, the repetition of the proposal by the prime minister shows a disregard for parliament. It reveals nothing but an obsession to fulfill the commitment made to president Bush in July 2005 in which the people of this country and parliament had no say. http://pd.cpim.org/2008/0706_pd/07062008_2.htm ---------------- [5] From: Regi P George <george_regi@yahoo.com Date: Sat Jul 12, 2008 2:30 am Subject: Nothing unexpected in IAEA safeguards agreement: Karat Nothing unexpected in IAEA safeguards agreement: Karat Vinay Kumar “IAEA has neither any obligation on fuel supplies nor on building strategic reserves” “There is only a vague mention of corrective measures in preamble” Statement says the Left parties’ concerns are not addressed NEW DELHI: Left parties on Friday maintained that going ahead with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguards agreement will be harmful to India’s interests. They said it was clear that the agreement does not address the fundamental problems in the controversial Hyde Act and the 123 Agreement with the U. S. on civilian nuclear cooperation. “It did not take much for us to study the safeguards agreement. There is nothing unexpected in it and we asked the government not to go ahead with it because it is one step forward in operationalising the 123 Agreement,” Communist Party of India (Marxist) general secretary Prakash Karat told journalists at a press conference. His senior party colleague and Polit Bureau member Sitaram Yechury, CPI national secretary D. Raja, and G. Devarajan of the Forward Bloc were also present. Fuel supply Mr. Karat said the safeguards agreement does not take care of fuel supply, strategic reserves and corrective measures regarding fuel supply. He said that as a regulatory body, the IAEA had neither any obligation on fuel supplies nor building strategic reserves. “As a result of operationalising the Indo-U. S. Nuclear Deal, India will place its costly imported reactors under perpetual IAEA safeguards and risk their permanent shutdown in case it fails to toe the U. S. line on foreign policy issues,” a joint statement by the general secretaries of the CPI(M), CPI, Forward Bloc and the Revolutionary Socialist Party of India said. The four-page statement said the text was “hidden” from the Left parties and people in order to suppress the fact that India “is about to bind its entire civilian nuclear energy programme into the IAEA safeguards in perpetuity without getting concrete assurances for uninterrupted fuel supply, right to build strategic reserves and right to take corrective steps in case fuel supplies are stopped.” It said the so-called “India-specific safeguards” agreement sent to the IAEA Board of Governors made it clear that the repeated assurances by the UPA government in Parliament and outside, on securing uninterrupted fuel supply assurances and strategic fuel reserves, have not been fulfilled. The statement said that but for the facilities India proposed to put under the IAEA safeguards, it would be treated as a non-nuclear weapons State. No special rights “Clearly, India will not have any special rights in its safeguarded facilities and this directly contradicts the assurances given by the Prime Minister to Parliament. Nuclear weapon states, as defined in the Non-Proliferation Treaty, have the right to take any facility out of safeguards, a right India will not have for the reactors it is offering to the IAEA for safeguards,” it pointed out. The statement said there was only a vague mention of “corrective measures” in the preamble. As against the vagueness of the “corrective measures” figuring in the preamble, what was spelt out clearly in the body of the agreement was that India could withdraw its facilities from safeguards only if it was jointly agreed between India and IAEA and if these facilities are no longer usable for any nuclear activity. Posing a key question with respect to the IAEA safeguards, it wondered how it could be ensured that once India’s civilian reactors go under safeguards in perpetuity, the country would not be blackmailed by withholding of nuclear fuel supplies, as the U. S. did in Tarapur following Pokhran-I. The Left said the final arbiter on any interpretation of the agreement and dispute settlement was the IAEA Board of Governors, whose decision would be final. “If India is held non-compliant, though it is not so by its own interpretation, it can be referred to the Security Council for action, including sanctions. The Iran case is an example.” The statement said the Left parties’ concerns were not addressed. These are: “In case the U. S. or other countries in the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) renege on fuel supply assurances for imported reactors, will India have the ability to withdraw these reactors from the IAEA safeguards? If the U. S./NSG countries renege on fuel supply assurances, can we withdraw our indigenous civilian reactors from the IAEA safeguards? What are the corrective steps India can take if fuel supplies are interrupted by the U. S./NSG countries? “What are the conditions that India must fulfil if corrective steps are to be put into operation? If we have to bring nuclear fuel from the non-safeguarded part of our nuclear programme for these reactors in case of fuel supply assurances not being fulfilled, will we have the ability to take it back again? http://www.hindu.com/2008/07/12/stories/2008071255391200.htm ---------------- [6] From: "Sukla Sen" <sukla.sen@gmail.com Date: Sat Jul 12, 2008 11:44 am Subject: Indo-US Nuclear Deal: Four Responses to the Draft IAEA Agreement [What strikes one right in the face is that both the major opponents and the proponents of the deal in India are pathologically obsessed with protecting India's "right" to carry out further nuclear explosion to graduate from the A-Bomb to the H-Bomb level to be able to kill, or at least threaten to kill, just not hundreds of thousands but millions and millions. They refuse to even contemplate that there is something "wrong", terribly wrong, about it. Even the concept of "minimum credible deterrence" goes with the wind. That's where Gandhi's India has come to!] A. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/SAAN_/message/1140 #1. Deceptions Surface in Nuclear Deal (Praful Bidwai) #2. Parsing the India-specific safeguards agreement - news analysis (Siddharth Varadarajan) #3. India-IAEA Safeguards Agreement "Worse Than Useless, a Sham" (Edward J. Markey) -- #1. Inter Press Service INDIA/US: DECEPTIONS SURFACE IN NUCLEAR DEAL Analysis by Praful Bidwai NEW DELHI, Jul 11 (IPS) - The Indian government has taken a major step towards completing its controversial nuclear cooperation deal with the United States by moving the Board of Governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency for approving an inspections (safeguards) agreement it signed last year with the IAEA secretariat pertaining to civilian nuclear reactors. The news has been greeted by the domestic political opposition with howls of protest and accusations of deception and a violation of the commitment the Manmohan Singh government made just a few days ago to seek a vote of confidence from Parliament before approaching the IAEA Board of Governors. Meanwhile, the text of the safeguards agreement, which the government claims is classified and confidential, has been leaked. About 10 hours after it was posted on several websites by arms control groups on Wednesday night, the Indian Ministry of External Affairs made it public yesterday -- only to draw acerbic criticism of its contents. The United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government is in a minority in Parliament after the Left parties, on whom it was dependent for support for more than four years, withdrew it two days ago. The Left parties' decision came after the government reneged on its promise not to move the IAEA Board without considering the findings of a joint UPA-Left committee on the nuclear deal, set up last year In a dramatic U-turn, the Samajwadi Party, a regional party based in northern Uttar Pradesh state, has decided to back the deal and support the government. But it is not clear that the SP's 39 members of parliament (MPs) can help the UPA stitch together a parliamentary majority after the Left's 59 MPs withdrew support. The Left has sharply attacked the UPA for approaching the IAEA despite being a "minority government". It says Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was in an unseemly hurry to push the deal and demands to know what he discussed with U. S. President George W Bush when they met in Japan earlier this week on the sidelines of the G8 summit. The Right, led by the Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, has accused the government of "deception at midnight" for surreptitiously moving the IAEA. Both opposition groups have criticised the safeguards agreement as falling well short of the solemn commitments Singh made to the Indian Parliament in March 2006. Singh had told Parliament that the agreement would be "India-specific" and India would obtain assurances of uninterrupted fuel supply, and the rights to build a "strategic fuel reserve" and take "corrective measures" in case of an interruption in supplies. "However, the agreement circulated amongst the Board of Governors does not contain these assurances in the main text; it does so only in the preamble," says M. V. Ramana, an independent nuclear affairs analyst at the Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies in the Environment and Development in Bangalore. "And the preamble does not have operative significance or legal force." "Besides," adds Ramana, "the body of the text is almost identical to the language of the standard safeguards agreement the IAEA signs with non-nuclear weapons states, called INFCIRC (Information Circular) 66 in the Agency's jargon. This will make it open to the criticism that it fails to defend India's strategic autonomy as a de facto nuclear weapons state, as Singh promised to do. Nor does it explicitly guarantee uninterrupted fuel supplies." The Right has already launched an attack on the agreement along these lines. The BJP has accused the government of violating the assurance contained in the original text of the deal signed between Bush and Singh in July 2005 that India would have "the same benefits and advantages" and the same obligations as other "states with advanced nuclear technology" such as the U. S., a term widely interpreted to mean nuclear weapons-states. On the other hand, the agreement has drawn flak from arms control and nuclear disarmament groups both in India and internationally because it unduly favours India . Says Sukla Sen of the Coalition for Nuclear Disarmament and Peace, a broad-based network of more than 200 Indian peace groups: "The agreement is fatally flawed because it is part of a larger deal that allows India to keep its nuclear arsenal and make more fuel for nuclear weapons. It detracts from the objectives of nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament, and will have a negative global impact." Similarly, U. S. Congressman Edward Markey, a senior member of the House of Representatives Energy and Commerce Committee, and co-chair of the House Bipartisan Task Force on Non-proliferation, has described the agreement as "worse than useless" and "a sham". He was quoted as saying: "This pathetic safeguards agreement not only seriously undermines the Non-Proliferation Treaty, but it also sends the exact wrong message to Iran: that international nuclear safeguards are only for show. With this agreement, the IAEA has thrown its principles out the window and has abandoned its most important responsibilities." Daryl Kimball of the Arms Control Association (U. S.) has also slammed the agreement, and says, it "contains conflicting language on what India might be able to do if it resumes testing and fuel supplies are terminated". According to the preamble, India may take unspecified "corrective measures" to ensure fuel supplies in the event that they are interrupted. But Paragraph 32 of the text says that India and the IAEA will jointly determine whether and when a facility may be withdrawn from safeguards. This is different from the normal INFCIRC 66 agreement which gives the IAEA "the sole authority" to do so. Kimball added that if India interprets the agreement as allowing it to remove facilities or materials from safeguards in the event of a fuel supply interruption (which would only likely happen in the event that India resumes testing), this would violate the principle of permanent safeguards over all nuclear materials and facilities. It would also contradict the requirement established by the U. S. Congress in implementing legislation passed in 2006 [called the Hyde Act] that the safeguards last 'in perpetuity and are consistent with IAEA standards and practices'. As the debate on the nuclear deal moves on to a different plane, two things are clear. First, the Indian domestic political opposition is highly unlikely to be satisfied with the government's interpretation that the safeguards agreement as drafted meets the requirements of the promised "India-specific" agreement with all its assurances. "It is plain that the agreement will not fly and receive anything approaching consensual or broad-based support in India," says Ramana. "It will remain controversial and highly divisive." Second, the agreement will face some resistance, possibly in the IAEA Board of Governors, and almost certainly in the 45-nation Nuclear Suppliers' Group, which must grant India clean and unconditional exemption from its nuclear commerce rules, which prohibit trade with a country that has not signed the NPT and does not accept full-scope safeguards on all its nuclear facilities in perpetuity. The deal must clear these hurdles in record time if it is to be taken up by the U. S. Congress before it adjourns on Sep. 26 prior to the Nov. 4 elections. According to The Washington Post, the Hyde Act mandates that Congress must be in 30 days of continuous session to consider it, and there are less than 40 days left in the session. So the deal "appears unlikely to win final approval in the U. S. Congress this year". That leaves only a short interval, the next couple of weeks, for both the IAEA and the NSG to clear the deal. It is improbable that this will happen. The Indian government's "victory" in taking the deal to the IAEA in the teeth of strong domestic opposition may yet turn out to be pyrrhic. (END/2008) o o o #2. The Hindu July 12, 2008 PARSING THE INDIA-SPECIFIC SAFEGUARDS AGREEMENT - NEWS ANALYSIS by Siddharth Varadarajan The draft text negotiated with the IAEA places the country mid-way between nuclear weapon states and non-nuclear weapon states in terms of its rights and obligations. By going about its business of approaching the Board of Governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency for approval of India's safeguards agreement with stealth and even subterfuge, the United Progressive Alliance government has scored a political own-goal which is likely to detract from the debate over the contents of the safeguards text itself. This is unfortunate because the 23-page document, negotiated over five rounds of meetings between India and the IAEA Secretariat, contains much that is worthy of comment and analysis. The bulk of the technical aspects of the document - especially on safeguards procedures - with one or two important exceptions is virtually a carbon copy of the provisions found in the Agency's template document for site-specific safeguards in a non-nuclear weapon state (Infcirc 66/Rev. 2). But it is in the crucial provisions dealing with (1) what is to be safeguarded and for how long, and (2) the purpose and objective of the safeguards agreement and the conditions under which it is operative, that the draft takes on an "India-specific" character that is radically different from the ones applicable to NNWSs. If the non-nuclear weapon states have virtually no rights and only obligations vis-?vis the IAEA and the five official nuclear weapons states have only rights and virtually no obligations, India has negotiated for itself a position more or less in between. As a country with nuclear weapons voluntarily offering some civilian facilities for safeguards, it has many more rights and fewer obligations than an NNWS; at the same time, it has fewer rights than an NWS and certainly more obligations. Scope and structure Broadly speaking, rather than islanding its military nuclear sector and placing every other nuclear facility under safeguards, the Indian agreement essentially offers an island of self-defined facilities drawn from its civilian sector for potential safeguarding. And that too only if India feels that by doing so the "implementation of relevant bilateral or multilateral arrangements to which India is a party" are fulfilled (Art. 13, 14 and 5). In other words, safeguards are being accepted by India pursuant to these arrangements and for no other reason. The preamble invokes an article of the IAEA statute authorising it to "apply safeguards, at the request of the parties, to any bilateral or multilateral arrangement, or at the request of a State to any of the State's activities in the field of atomic energy." In this context, it notes "the relevance for this agreement" of the Indo-U. S. joint statement of July 2005 in which India "has stated its willingness to identify and separate its civilian and military nuclear facilities and programmes in a phased manner," file a Declaration with the IAEA regarding its civilian nuclear facilities and "place voluntarily" those civilian facilities under safeguards. The most important part of the Agreement from the perspective of international law is the preambular assertion that "an essential basis of India's concurrence to accept Agency safeguards" is (1) the conclusion of international arrangements for the uninterrupted and continuous access to nuclear fuel, and (2) support for an Indian effort to develop a strategic reserve of nuclear fuel. The same section of the preamble also notes that "India may take corrective measures to ensure uninterrupted operation of its civilian nuclear facilities in the event of disruption of foreign fuel supplies." This condition, which first began life as a unilateral assertion by India in its separation plan of March 2006 and was subsequently accorded political recognition by the U. S. in the 123 agreement, emerges here as a legally binding condition upon which the entire edifice of the Safeguards Agreement is constructed. While non-proliferation activists abroad have denounced these provisions, a controversy has arisen within India about the inclusion of these phrases in the preambular rather than the operational section of the agreement. The government's critics say that since "corrective measures" are not mentioned anywhere other than the preamble, they are not "legally binding." The government insists this makes no difference. In reality, the truth probably lies in between. The preamble is an integral part of the agreement and cannot be separated from the operational section without the latter part losing its entire context. In the Indian case, the legal linkage between the preambular and operational section is made stronger by stating at the end of the preamble: "Now, therefore, taking into account the above, India and the Agency have agreed as follows:" No Infcirc/153 preamble contains the words "taking into account the above." For non-nuclear weapons states, the need for a safeguards agreement stems from their obligations under the NPT. For India, the need arises from its bilateral and multilateral arrangements and the understandings therein. Thus, the context in which the need for safeguards arises is absolutely crucial here. The application of safeguards is conditional on the implementation of these arrangements. Thus the linkage between preamble and operational text is tighter than in other legal contexts. At the same time, it is a fact that Indian negotiators had initially sought to insert the right to take corrective measures in at least four different places. As the talks with the IAEA Secretariat progressed, this was whittled down to the reference that remains, which the Indian negotiators felt was sufficient. As a result, the right to take corrective measures comes in implicitly, through the conditions precedent to the need for safeguards. If India were ever to invoke these measures, it would no doubt face flak (depending on what those measures were) but it would nevertheless have a legal leg to stand on. Given the controversy over these provisions, a concern has arisen about what India could do if it is suddenly denied access to nuclear fuel for its imported and indigenously produced civilian reactors. Would safeguards remain in force "in perpetuity" even if fuel supplies are cut off? Though the word "perpetuity" does not figure in the agreement, the answer is 'yes' in the case of imported reactors since lifetime safeguards are written into Article 29's reference to "termination of safeguards" being implemented "taking into account the provisions of GOV/1621." GOV/1621 was a document introduced by the IAEA in 1973 with two principal provisions. The first has to do with continuation of safeguards on safeguardable material, the duration of which it extends to the time such material needs to be safeguarded. The second aspect is termination. The Hyde Act introduced the reference to this document in order to define the perpetuity safeguards that India had agreed to in March 2006 in such a way as to prevent India from removing imported facilities from IAEA supervision. However, non-supplied facilities - that is, those that India indigenously manufactures and voluntarily offers for safeguards - will be subjected to safeguards only as long as they use imported fuel. In other words, India does not even need to invoke its separate right to corrective measures; the protection here is in-built. This provision provides a major incentive for the international community to ensure continuity of fuel supplies for these reactors. The problem of ensuring operating continuity for imported reactors in case of a supplier reneging on a commitment remains. In principle, India may invoke its right to take corrective measures but any "retaliatory" step can at best serve as a pressure tactic; it cannot provide fuel where none exists. With the ghost of Tarapur always fresh in its mind, India in recent years has sought to protect itself from this possibility in various ways. The Kudankulam safeguards agreement covering imported VVER reactors from Russia, for example, provides for lifetime fuel supply under a sovereign guarantee of the Russian Federation. The safeguards agreement goes one step further by establishing a template wherein fuel supply guarantees are an essential part of any transfer to India of safeguarded reactors with the added layer of protection provided by the corrective measures envisaged in the preamble. Suppliers who are not able to provide such a guarantee or deal with the possibility of India invoking its right to corrective measures will find the country unwilling to buy their wares. In any event, the safeguards agreement provides for India to report to the IAEA without delay "any disruption of operation of [safeguarded] facilities on account of material violation or breach of bilateral or multilateral arrangements to which India is a party" (Art. 52 (c)). Articles 105 and 106 allow India to raise these violations directly with the IAEA Board. This is clearly a reference to the eventuality - mentioned in Article 14 of the U. S.-India 123 Agreement - on 'termination and cessation of cooperation' by the United States. Some critics in India had noted the absence of a reference to the supremacy of international law in the 123 agreement in the event of unilateral termination of supplies by the U. S. A fix has been attempted in the Safeguards Agreement in Article 10 - a provision not found in standard safeguards agreements for NNWSs - when it states, "Nothing in this Agreement shall affect other rights and obligations of India under international law." The safeguards agreement represents an attempt to tie down the political commitments of July 2005 and March 2006 into a legal framework in which India has clearly defined rights. Some of these rights are explicit, others are implicit. But as with any legal regime, implementation of the agreement in a manner consistent with India's expectations and interests will depend on a range of political factors, including both the attitude of the international community and the willingness of future governments in India to assert the country's rights when the chips are down. o o o #3. US Congressman Edward J. Markey Press Release http://markey.house.gov/index.php? option=content&task=view&id=3409&Itemid=125 July 10, 2008 - Markey: INDIA-IAEA SAFEGUARDS AGREEMENT "WORSE THAN USELESS, A SHAM" Loopholes in Agreement Contradict Bush Admin Promises, Hyde Act WASHINGTON, D. C. - Today, Representative Edward J. Markey (D-MA), a senior member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee and the founder and co-chair of the House Bipartisan Task Force on Nonproliferation, expressed his shock at the loopholes contained in the newly-released International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguards agreement with India, negotiated to cover the U. S.-India nuclear deal. "The India-IAEA safeguards agreement is worse than useless; it is a sham. Safeguards agreements should ensure a bright red line between civilian and military nuclear facilities. Instead, this agreement lays out a path for India to unilaterally remove international safeguards from reactors," Rep. Markey said. "This pathetic safeguards agreement not only seriously undermines the Non-Proliferation Treaty, but it also sends the exact wrong message to Iran: that international nuclear safeguards are only for show. With this agreement, the IAEA has thrown its principles out the window and has abandoned its most important responsibilities. Contrary to everything the Bush administration has claimed about the U. S.-India nuclear deal, if this safeguards agreement is approved, India will be allowed to make electricity one day and bombs the next." The Bush Administration pledged to Congress repeatedly that the IAEA safeguards agreement would be permanent and not allow India to take facilities out of safeguards for any reason. On Wednesday April 5, 2006, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that, "Once a reactor is under IAEA oversight, safeguards will be in place permanently and without any conditions." The Hyde Act, which the Congress passed govern nuclear transfers to India, also requires that the IAEA safeguards agreement be "in perpetuity." "Secretary Rice testified before Congress that safeguards on Indian nuclear facilities would be 'permanent,' not 'as long as India wants.' She and the Bush Administration will need to answer to Congress as to why this safeguards agreement is the complete opposite from what they told us it would be. This safeguards agreement contradicts what the Bush Administration has said for 3 years, and it contradicts the law," Rep. Markey concluded. FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE July 10, 2008 CONTACT: Jessica Schafer, 202.225.2836 B. http://www.hindu.com/2008/07/12/stories/2008071260261200.htm *BJP's 'questions' on IAEA draft * ** Special Correspondent NEW DELHI: The Bharatiya Janata Party on Friday posed "some questions" related to the draft agreement India proposes to sign with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), starting with its criticism that the agency does not recognise India as a nuclear weapon state. "No special status is being given to India as a nuclear weapon state," BJP spokesperson Ravi Shankar Prasad said. He claimed that the proposed agreement was "in the same format as [were] agreements the agency has signed [in the past] with non-nuclear weapon states." Ignoring the specific reference on page 2 of the draft agreement to India's right "to identify and separate its civilian and military nuclear facilities" and its sole discretion to decide which of its facilities it wants to place under safeguards, Mr. Prasad said the proposed agreement would "cap India's military nuclear programme." The draft agreement, however, makes it clear that the IAEA would implement safeguards in a manner as "not to hinder or otherwise interfere with any activities involving the use by India of nuclear material, non-nuclear material, equipment, components, information or technology produced, acquired or developed by India independent of this Agreement for its own purposes." And, in a joint statement by BJP leaders Yashwant Sinha and Arun Shourie on August 4 last, they admitted that at least 10 per cent, if not more, nuclear reactors would remain outside the safeguards agreement. In short, India would be free to use these reactors for furthering its nuclear military programme. Apprehensions Mr. Prasad expressed the BJP's apprehensions on the question of fuel supplies to India's nuclear reactors although the draft agreement clearly states that "an essential basis for India's concurrence to accept Agency [IAEA] safeguards" is "international cooperation" in creating conditions that would allow India "to obtain access to the international [nuclear] fuel market, including reliable, uninterrupted and continuous access to fuel supplies from companies in several nations" to support India's effort to develop "a strategic reserve of nuclear fuel ?" The party felt this would not ensure continuous supply. Mr. Prasad wanted to know what "corrective measures" India could take if promises of fuel supply for the lifetime of a reactor were violated. The "corrective measures" had not been spelt out in the draft agreement, he said. ---------- |
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July15, 2008 - [India Thinkers Net]Education in Punjab ,AAPSO ,Nuke news etc >> |
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