Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard moved yesterday to lift Australia’s controversial ban on uranium sales to nuclear power India in a bid to strengthen relations with the fast-growing economic powerhouse.
While Canberra exports uranium to Taiwan, China, Japan, and the US, India has been excluded because New Delhi has not signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, currently a prerequisite for sales to go ahead.
Gillard said it was time to make a change, with the subject likely to dominate the annual Labor Party conference in Sydney next month, where any policy switch needs to be ratified.
“I believe the time has come for Labor to change its position. Selling uranium to India will be good for the Australian economy and for Australian jobs,” she told a press conference.
Although Australia uses no nuclear power, it is the world’s third-ranking uranium producer behind Kazakhstan and Canada, exporting 9,600 tonnes of oxide concentrate annually worth over A$1.1 billion (US$1.1 billion).
It also holds the world’s largest reserves of uranium, with 23 percent of the total, according to the World Nuclear Association.
Gillard said Canberra had pursued international diplomatic efforts to encourage India to sign the nuclear treaty, but the US-India Civil Nuclear Agreement, penned in 2005, changed that strategy.
Under that declaration, India agreed to separate its civil and military nuclear facilities and abide by International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguards.In exchange, the US agreed to work toward full civil nuclear cooperation with the South Asian giant.
“It effectively lifted the de facto international ban on co-operation with India in this area,” Gillard said. “Consequently, for us to refuse to budge is all pain with no gain.”
India is expected to increase its use of nuclear power from the current three percent of electricity generation to 40 percent by 2050 and Gillard said it made economic sense in “the Asian century” to boost ties.
“We are a very big supplier of uranium, so having access to this new and growing market is good for Australian jobs,” she said.
However, the prime minister stressed that any exports would have to be accompanied by guarantees that uranium would only be used for power facilities and not military purposes.
The conservative opposition in Australia has for years called on Labor to change its policy so the country can tap into the lucrative and expanding Indian market. New Delhi has also been pressuring the government.
However, not everyone wants a policy change, with Labor senator Doug Cameron among those opposed.
“We will simply be exporting uranium to India and that will free up uranium within India for the military program,” he said, while Australian Greens leader Bob Brown slammed the move.
He said it was putting the commercial interests of multinational mining companies ahead of global safety, warning that selling uranium to India would add to the “nuclear arms race.”
“This is a country that has intermediate-range missiles,” Brown told ABC radio. “It’s developing a plethora of nuclear submarines with nuclear weapons.”
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