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VIENNA, July 31: UN nuclear watchdog governors are expected on Friday to approve an inspections plan for India needed for its atomic trade deal with the United States, despite qualms about rewarding a non-proliferation outsider.
The deal would open to India the world market in nuclear fuel and technology for civilian uses after an embargo of three decades prompted by New Delhi’s testing of atomic bombs and refusal to join the global Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
The draft before the International Atomic Energy Agency’s 35-nation governing board would place India’s declared civilian nuclear energy plants -- 14 of 22 existing or planned reactors -- under regular IAEA surveillance.
If the plan is adopted, India must then win an unprecedented waiver from the 45-nation Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) allowing trade in sensitive nuclear materials with an non-NPT state, and ratification by the US Congress for the deal to take force.The first NSG meeting on India is expected on Aug 21-22.
Washington and New Delhi are lobbying sceptical members of the slow-moving NSG hard to help clinch the deal, with time fast running out before US politics pause for November elections.
Western powers tout the deal as nudging giant India towards the non-proliferation mainstream and fighting global warming by increasing use of low-polluting nuclear energy in burgeoning developing economies, reducing high oil and gas costs as well.
Sceptics, including smaller European and developing nations, Canada, New Zealand and disarmament groups fear it will fray loyalty to an NPT already challenged by a push for nuclear power, led by Iran, in the volatile Middle East.
QUALIFIED APPROVAL: Those pros and cons will colour debate at the Vienna IAEA meeting. But diplomats said approval of the inspections scheme — probably by consensus — was not in doubt because, however limited, it would mark a net gain for non-proliferation.
“Board members have had ample time to study the agreement and ask questions of India and the (IAEA inspectorate),” US
Ambassador Gregory Schulte told reporters on Wednesday.
“The agreement is a sound one, based on the IAEA’s approved safeguards system,” he said, adding that “Friday will constitute a major step forward in the wider effort to erase differences” between the world and its most populous democracy.
Some European and other Western diplomats on the board said Indian and IAEA briefers did not entirely resolve concerns about fuzzy wording suggesting inspections might not be permanent and giving India leeway to boost its off-limits atom bomb programme.They cite a “corrective measures” clause hinting India could halt inspections if atomic fuel imports were cut off in response to another nuclear test blast, although India is observing a voluntary moratorium crucial to the commerce pact.
“This plan doesn’t make the separation between civilian and military reactors leak-proof. You really can’t separate civilian and military nuclear know-how including sensitive technologies like uranium enrichment,” said one Western diplomat.
“There won’t be any champagne toasts after the approval.
There’s not much enthusiasm for this,” a senior non-Western diplomat said. “But the general view is that subjecting most of India’s reactors to safeguards is positive as a whole.”
A European diplomat, echoing others, said: “The bigger debate will take place in the NSG where there is real concern about giving special treatment to a country outside the NPT, sending the wrong signal to Iran and others.”
Diplomats said India’s pursuit of an unconditional exemption at the NSG faces demands by some Western members for a binding Indian pledge of no more nuclear tests and an inspection regime more intrusive than the current basic plan.—Reuters
