IAEA approves extra atom inspection pact for India

Posted 03 4 2009 12:01PM

VIENNA (Reuters) – U.N. nuclear watchdog governors on Tuesday approved a deal allowing extra inspections of India's atomic industry, a condition of a U.S.-led deal allowing New Delhi to import nuclear technology after a 33-year freeze.

Passage of an "Additional Protocol" somewhat expanding the International Atomic Energy Agency's monitoring rights in India came a month after New Delhi signed a basic nuclear safeguards accord opening its civilian nuclear plants to U.N. inspections.

The Additional Protocol would give IAEA inspectors more information on India's nuclear-related exports, imports and source material, diplomats familiar with the issue said.

But some members of the 35-nation IAEA Board of Governors joined the consensus vote only with reluctance, they said.

Sceptics felt that while heightened U.N. safeguards were a net gain for a country outside the Non-Proliferation Treaty, they could have been stronger had there been more time for negotiations, they added.

Switzerland, South Africa, Ireland and Cuba protested that the agreement was handed to the board only two days ago, too late to thoroughly assess whether it will really contribute to disarmament," one diplomat in the closed-door meeting said.

"It doesn't because there are no provisions to ensure India cannot divert into its military nuclear sector nuclear materials and know-how it obtains abroad for the civilian sector."

The protocol would give inspectors wider access to India's programme but not as much as in states that have signed the NPT.

SUPPLIERS LIFT NUCLEAR BAN ON INDIA

IAEA oversight was stipulated when the 45-nation Nuclear Suppliers Group agreed in September to lift a ban on nuclear trade with India, imposed after its first nuclear test in 1974 and for its refusal to join the NPT.

India, Pakistan and Israel are the only countries never to have never signed the NPT.

Washington pushed through the NSG "waiver" because this was indispensable to implementing its own 2005 nuclear cooperation pact to supply India with nuclear technology.

U.S. officials said the deal, a major plank in former U.S. President George W. Bush's foreign policy, would forge a strategic partnership with India, help it meet rising energy demand and open up a nuclear market worth billions of dollars.

Disarmament advocates complained that it undercut the NPT, meant to prevent the spread and production of nuclear weapons.

After its first nuclear test in 1974, India conducted a series of nuclear tests in 1998, prompting rival Pakistan to follow suit within weeks.

IAEA safeguards require India to open up 14 of 22 reactors to inspections by 2014. New Delhi must still specify which reactors will come under inspection, an Indian government official said last month.

Critics fear Indian access to foreign nuclear materials could allow it to divert more of its limited domestic nuclear supplies to its bomb programme and drive historical foe Pakistan into another arms race.

India, which relies on imported oil for some 70 percent of its energy needs, says the nuclear supply pact will help feed energy demands in its expanding economy, while helping combat global warming linked to fossil fuel emissions.