Replies

Concern in west over Russian plan to sell nuclear reactor fuel to India
By Guy Dinmore in Washington and Neil Buckley in Moscow
Published: March 16 2006 02:00 | Last updated: March 16 2006 02:00

Russia yesterday defended plans to sell nuclear fuel to India as western governments and advocates of arms control voiced concern that international guidelines were being weakened at a critical juncture for nuclear non-proliferation.
ADVERTISEMENT

Controversy over the deal highlights the complexities the Bush administration faces to promote its Global Nuclear Energy Partnership, a plan to marry energy security with arms control by providing for an elite club of industrialised nations to supply developing countries with nuclear fuel before taking it back.

In advance of today's meeting of Group of Eight energy ministers in Moscow, Samuel Bodman, US energy secretary, yesterday called for international support for the plan, saying the US and Russia had a special responsibility to be "good stewards of the enormous nuclear legacy of the cold war".

But Russia, host of the G8 meeting, has upset fellow members of the Nuclear Suppliers Group by deciding to supply 60 tonnes of nuclear fuel to India, which is not a member of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty (NPT).

The UK said yesterday it had "a number of questions about this deal" that it would raise at next week's meeting of NSG experts.

A spokesman for Sergei Kiriyenko, head of Russia's federal atomic energy agency, insisted the delivery of uranium would comply with the NSG's guidelines on nuclear fuel exports, which permitted such deliveries under an exception clause when safety was at stake.

A spokeswoman for Mr Bodman said Russia's plan to supply India with fuel had not been discussed during a meeting with Mr Kiriyenko.

The Russian agency's spokesman said India's Tarapur reactors were now operating with fuel burned out beyond projected levels, which affected their safety, since India did not have sufficient enrichment capacity to replace the fuel.

Member states of the NSG - an informal association that sets guidelines for trading in nuclear materials - were generally unhappy with Russia but could do little, diplomats said.

India's foreign ministry said Russia's decision conformed with the July 18 agreement between President George W. Bush and Indian prime minister Manmohan Singh in Washington. Mr Bush then, the Indian foreign ministry noted, committed the US to working with "friends and allies to adjust international regimes to enable full civil nuclear energy co-operation and trade with India, including but not limited to expeditious consideration of fuel supplies for safeguarded reactors at Tarapur".

The US State Department expressed concern. But analysts noted its criticism was more muted than in 2001 when the US protested at Russia's decision to supply fuel to Tarapur, which is under UN safeguards.

"If Russia goes forth with the sale of nuclear material to India without consensus from the NSG, this will begin a new era in which the rules that governed nuclear trade for decades are gradually swept away," said Edward Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat.