RSS
While Australia is prepared to move forward with an agreement to sell uranium to Russia, a top government official today said Canberra would not consider a similar deal with India, the Associated Press reported (see GSN, Nov. 12, 2009).
The Australian government yesterday dismissed the advice of a 2008 report from parliament that recommended against implementing a 2007 uranium trade deal with Moscow. The agreement was inked by then-Prime Minister John Howard and former Russian President Vladimir Putin, who is now his country's prime minister (see GSN, Nov. 25, 2008).
While the report highlighted the threat that the material could be subject to theft or diversion for illicit purposes, the government today expressed confidence in the security infrastructure for any trade agreement.
"We have taken considerable time on our part to ensure we're satisfied, the International Atomic Energy Agency is satisfied, that the strictest of safeguards are in place," Australian Trade Minister Simon Crean told the Australian Broadcasting Corp.
The government, though, has said it wouldl not sell uranium to nuclear-armed India as it has yet to join the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.
"The signal to India ... is that this is the way in which they can be recipients of our supply and it's for India to respond to that," Crean said (Rod McGuirk, Associated Press/BusinessWeek, March 19).
Canberra has yet to finalize the Russian uranium trade agreement. The Rudd administration is expected to carry out a more thorough study of the pact before deciding whether to begin exports, the Australian Associated Press reported.
"We've given this very exhaustive consideration," Australian Foreign Minister Stephen Smith said in an interview today with ABC Radio.
"We've come to the conclusion that we can safely export uranium to Russia and it won't be diverted for military purposes," Smith said.
Moscow already has similar pacts in place with Japan and Canada, Crean said.
The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, however, said nuclear security is not strong in Russia and that the nation's progress on disarmament is very poor.
"Australia would effectively be relinquishing responsibility for supplying the raw ingredient for bomb fuel to a nuclear weapons state with an acknowledged lack of transparency in its civil-military arrangements," campaign spokesman Bill Williams said (Stephen Johnson, Australian Associated Press/Herald Sun, March 19).
Anti-nuclear advocate David Noonan of the Australian Conservation Foundation said that based on the information given to the parliamentary panel that prepared the 2008 report, exported uranium would "simply disappear off the safeguards radar on arrival in Russia," ABC News reported.
"This treaty allows Australian uranium to be used for facilities that are not covered by the International Atomic Energy Agency," he said (Alexandra Kirk, ABC News, March 19).