[NukeNet] US-India Deal: Call for Endorsements

[Citizens' Nuclear Information Center]

The US-India nuclear deal has reached a critical phase. The IAEA Board  
of Governors is due to consider a Safeguards Agreement today and the  
NSG is likely to consider an amendment to its guidelines soon after.

In response, a new sign on letter to Foreign Ministers of NSG  
governments has been produced by Daryl Kimball of the Arms Control  
Association, along with Abolition 2000's US-India Deal Working Group  
(copied below).

We are looking for NGO organizational sign-ons, including the name the  
top official/officer/staff person in the organization, the name of the  
organization, and country. The deadline is August 12 and the letter  
will be sent to Foreign Ministers mid month.

Time is of the essence. There could be an extraordinary plenary meeting  
of the NSG in late-August, probably 20th-21st. It probably won't be the  
deciding meeting, but we need to weigh-in with this letter by then.

You can find the previous letter and endorsements on either of the  
following two web sites:

http://legacy.armscontrol.org/pressroom/2008/NSGappeal.asp

http://cnic.jp/english/topics/plutonium/proliferation/usindiafiles/ 
nsgiaea7jan08.html

Philip White
Coordinator, Abolition 2000 US-India Deal Working Group
----------------------------------------

Decision Time on the Indian Nuclear Deal:
Help Avert a Nonproliferation Disaster

August 15, 2008

Dear Foreign Minister:

Your government and other members of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG)  
are being asked to consider the Bush administration's proposal to  
exempt India from longstanding NSG guidelines that require  
comprehensive IAEA safeguards as a condition of supply.

As many of us wrote in a January 2008 letter ("Fix the Proposal for  
Nuclear Cooperation with India"  
http://legacy.armscontrol.org/pressroom/2008/NSGappeal.asp), India's  
commitments under the current terms of the proposed arrangement do not  
justify making far-reaching exceptions to international  
nonproliferation rules and norms.

Contrary to the claims of its advocates, the deal fails to bring India  
further into conformity with the nonproliferation behavior expected of  
the member states of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Unlike  
178 other countries, India has not signed the Comprehensive Test Ban  
Treaty (CTBT). It continues to produce fissile material and expand its  
nuclear arsenal. As one of only three states never to have signed the  
NPT, it has not made a legally-binding commitment to achieve nuclear  
disarmament, and it refuses to allow comprehensive, full-scope  
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguards.

Yet the arrangement would give India rights and privileges of civil  
nuclear trade that have been reserved only for members in good standing  
under the NPT. It creates a dangerous distinction between "good"  
proliferators and "bad" proliferators and sends out misleading signals  
to the international community with regard to NPT norms.

We urge you to support measures that would avert further damage to the  
already beleaguered global nonproliferation and disarmament regime.

Given that the NSG only takes decisions by consensus, your government  
has a responsibility to consider the following adverse implications of  
the proposal.

1. Undermining the Nuclear Safeguards Regime
The proposed exemption of India from the comprehensive nuclear  
safeguards standard of supply threatens to further undermine the  
nuclear safeguards system. Given that India maintains a nuclear weapons  
program outside of safeguards, facility-specific safeguards on a few  
additional "civilian" reactors provide no serious nonproliferation  
benefits.

As part of the carefully crafted final document of the 1995 NPT Review  
and Extension Conference, all NPT states-parties endorsed the principle  
of full-scope safeguards as a condition of supply. A decision by the  
NSG to exempt India from this requirement would also contradict this  
important element of the NPT bargain. Furthermore, it is inappropriate  
for the member states of the NSG to take it upon themselves to make a  
decision on this matter for the 140-plus other members of the NPT.

Making matters worse, Indian officials have suggested that it might  
cease IAEA scrutiny if fuel supplies are cut off, even if that is  
because it renews nuclear testing. NSG members should reject such an  
interpretation. Your government has a solemn responsibility to reject  
any India-specific exemption from NSG guidelines that is premised on a  
safeguards agreement that is in any way inconsistent with the principle  
of permanent safeguards over all nuclear materials and facilities.

India also pledged on July 18, 2005 to conclude an additional protocol  
to its safeguards agreement. States should insist that India conclude a  
meaningful Additional Protocol safeguards regime before considering  
whether it is appropriate whether and how to make any India-specific  
alteration to the NSG guidelines.

2. Possible Transfer of Sensitive Enrichment and Reprocessing Items
Unless rejected by the NSG, India's insistence on obtaining "full"  
nuclear cooperation would undermine efforts to prevent the  
proliferation of technologies that may be used to produce nuclear bomb  
material, including reprocessing and enrichment technologies and items.  
Allowing transfers of these sensitive nuclear technologies is extremely  
unwise given that IAEA safeguards cannot prevent such items from being  
replicated and used to advance India's weapons program.

Recall that India detonated a nuclear device in 1974 that used  
plutonium harvested from a heavy water reactor supplied by Canada and  
the United States in violation of earlier bilateral peaceful nuclear  
use agreements. U.S. officials have stated that they do not intend to  
sell such technology, but other states may. Virtually all NSG states  
support proposals that would bar transfers of these sensitive nuclear  
technologies to non-NPT members. India must be no exception.

3. Indirect Assistance to India's Nuclear Weapons Program
In the absence of a suspension of fissile material for weapons by  
India, foreign nuclear fuel supplies would free up India's relatively  
limited domestic supplies to be used exclusively in its military  
nuclear sector, thereby indirectly contributing to the potential  
expansion of India's nuclear arsenal. This would contradict the spirit  
if not the letter of Article I of the NPT (which prohibits direct or  
indirect assistance to another state's nuclear weapons program), and it  
would spur further arms racing in South Asia.

India's verbal commitment to support negotiations of a global  
verifiable fissile material cut off treaty is a hollow gesture given  
the fact that states have failed to initiate negotiations on such a  
treaty for over a decade.

4. Facilitating Indian Nuclear Testing
If, as Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said on July 18, 2005, India would  
"assume the same responsibilities and practices" as other countries  
with advanced nuclear capabilities, it is reasonable to expect that  
India should agree to a legally-binding moratorium on nuclear test  
explosions. It would be highly irresponsible for CTBT signatories not  
to establish CTBT signature as a basic condition for NSG nuclear trade  
with India or any state that has not yet signed that treaty.

While Singh has reiterated his commitment to maintaining India's  
voluntary nuclear test moratorium, India has sought to avoid any  
further commitment to a test ban and has sought to avoid the  
possibility of any penalty in the event that it does resume testing. As  
Singh asserted most recently in his July 22 statement to the Lok Sabha,  
"I confirm that there is nothing in these agreements which prevents us  
from further nuclear tests if warranted by our national security  
concerns."

To reduce the impact of fuel supply cut off if India were to resume  
nuclear testing, Indian officials have gone further and are demanding a  
so-called "clean" and "unconditional" exemption from NSG guidelines and  
are seeking bilateral nuclear cooperation agreements that help provide  
India with strategic fuel reserves and/or lifetime fuel guarantees.

This flatly contradicts a provision in the 2006 U.S. implementing  
legislation, which was championed by Sen. Barack Obama and approved by  
the U.S. Congress, that stipulates that fuel supplies be limited to  
reasonable reactor operating requirements.1 It would also contradict  
the policy mandated by the U.S. implementing legislation that a nuclear  
test would lead to the immediate cessation of all U.S. nuclear  
cooperation with India.

If nuclear testing is to be deterred, meaningful penalties must be  
available. If NSG states do agree to supply fuel for India's "civilian"  
nuclear sector, they must avoid arrangements that would enable or  
encourage future nuclear testing by India. Otherwise, you and your  
government may become complicit in the facilitation of a new round of  
destabilizing nuclear tests.

In light of the above-mentioned flaws in the ill-conceived proposal to  
exempt India from certain NSG guidelines, we recommend that:

* If NSG supplier states should agree to supply fuel to India, they  
should establish a policy that if India resumes nuclear testing, or if  
India violates or withdraws "civilian" facilities or materials from  
international safeguards, all nuclear cooperation with India involving  
NSG members shall be terminated and unused fuel supplies from NSG  
states shall be returned. If NSG supplier states should agree to supply  
fuel to India, they should do so in a manner that is commensurate with  
ordinary reactor operating requirements and not provide - individually  
or collectively - strategic or lifetime nuclear fuel reserves.
* NSG states should expressly prohibit any transfer of sensitive  
plutonium reprocessing, uranium enrichment, or heavy water production  
items to India, whether inside or outside bilateral nuclear cooperation  
agreements.
* NSG states should actively oppose any arrangement that would give  
India any special safeguards exemptions or would in any way be  
inconsistent with the principle of permanent safeguards over all  
nuclear materials and facilities.
* Before India is granted a waiver from the NSG's full-scope safeguards  
standard, it should join the other original nuclear weapon states by  
declaring it has stopped fissile material production for weapons  
purposes and transform its nuclear test moratorium into a meaningful,  
legally-binding commitment.2
* NSG states should agree not to grant India consent to reprocess  
nuclear fuel supplied by an NSG member state in a facility that is not  
under permanent and unconditional IAEA safeguards, and also agree that  
any material produced in other facilities may not be transferred to any  
unsafeguarded facility.
* NSG states should agree that all bilateral nuclear cooperation  
agreements between an NSG member state and India explicitly prohibit  
the replication of any dual-use technology or use of such technology in  
any unsafeguarded Indian facilities.

The Indian nuclear deal would be a nonproliferation disaster and a  
serious setback to the prospects of global nuclear disarmament,  
especially now. For those world leaders who are serious about ending  
the arms race, holding all states to their international commitments,  
and strengthening the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, it is time to  
stand up and be counted.

Sincerely,

Daryl G. Kimball,
Executive Director,
Arms Control Association, Washington, D.C.

Steven Staples
Director
Rideau Institute on International Affairs (Canada)
Global Secretariat to Abolition 2000


Hideyuki Ban
Co-Director
Citizens' Nuclear Information Center (Tokyo, Japan)


1 See September 16, 2006 exchange on the floor of the Senate between  
Sen. Barack Obama and Sen. Richard Lugar, then Chairman of the Senate  
Foreign Relations Committee, available  
from                          <http://bulk.resource.org/gpo.gov/record/ 
2006/2006_S11021.pdf > and  
<http://bulk.resource.org/gpo.gov/record/2006/2006_S11022.pdf>. Also  
see Sec. 103 (b) para 10 of the Henry J. Hyde United States-India  
Peaceful Atomic Energy Cooperation Act.

2 All UN members states are also obligated to support UN Security  
Council Resolution 1172, which calls on India and Pakistan to sign the  
Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) stop producing fissile material  
for weapons, and undertake other nuclear risk reduction measures. All  
NSG states have a responsibility to uphold their obligations under UNSC  
1172 by reiterating and actively encouraging India and Pakistan to  
implement these and other nuclear restraint measures.