IAEA and India

There is some uncertainty about what precisely the government intends to do in working out an ‘India-specific’ safeguards agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency as a first step towards operationalising the India-United States nuclear deal. Does it plan to go to the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) with the ‘frozen text’ of a safeguards agreement? Or will it go to the IAEA’s Board of Governors with the safeguards agreement in the first instance?

At the recent fourth meeting of the United Progressive Alliance-Left Committee on the India-United States nuclear agreement, Pranab Mukherjee and other Congress Ministers indicated that the government was going for the second option. They asked the Left leaders to allow it to go ahead and negotiate a safeguards agreement with the IAEA. While the government had held no formal talks for India-specific safeguards, it wanted to take an agreement on this to the IAEA’s Board of Governors and ‘five weeks’ of notice had to be given for the matter to come on the agenda. The government promised to show the Left parties the text of the safeguards agreement negotiated before taking it to the IAEA’s Board of Governors.

However, this indicated course is at variance with what informed sources say is the “current thinking” within the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE). While stressing that “there is no clearance from the government [to the DAE] to hold formal talks” with the IAEA on an India-specific safeguards agreement, they point out that the “current thinking” is to go for the following four-step sequence once the government gives the clearance to the DAE:

The first step is for the DAE to negotiate and finalise an India-specific safeguards agreement with the IAEA secretariat. The second step is to negotiate with the Nuclear Suppliers Group to receive exemptions from the NSG Guidelines that would allow India to import nuclear reactors and fuel; and to examine whether these exemptions are acceptable to India.

The third step is to wait for the U.S. Congress to approve the 123 agreement with India.

In the fourth and final step, India will go to the Board of Governors of the IAEA and present for its approval the ‘frozen text’ of the India-specific safeguards agreement worked out with the IAEA secretariat.

“This is the present sequence” and “this is the current thinking” of the government and the DAE, the informed sources told The Hindu after the fourth meeting of the UPA-Left committee.

The Rules and Procedures of the Board of Governors of the IAEA state that a minimum of 72 hours’ notice is required for calling a Board meeting that has not been decided on in an earlier Board meeting or is not being called under “exceptional circumstances.” However, the rules and procedures do require a lead time of “not less than forty-five days” for the circulation of “documents of particular importance” before they can be taken up by the Board in a meeting.

Asked whether India would accept the terms of the safeguards agreement if the IAEA were to insist on its placing the reactors to be imported under safeguards in perpetuity even in the event of fuel supply being cut off, the official sources drew attention to Article 5.6 (c) of the 123 agreement, which enabled India to take “corrective measures” if the fuel supply were to be cut off for the reactors. Article 5.6 (c) says: “An India-specific safeguards agreement will be negotiated between India and the IAEA for safeguards to guard against the withdrawal of safeguarded nuclear material from civilian use at any time as well as providing for corrective measures that India may take to ensure uninterrupted operation of its civilian nuclear reactors in the event of disruption of foreign fuel supplies. Taking this into account, India will place its civilian nuclear facilities under India-specific safeguards in perpetuity and negotiate an appropriate safeguards agreement to this end with the IAEA.”

Asked what kind of “corrective measures” India could insist upon, the informed sources said: “So far we have not defined what these corrective steps will be. It will be our sovereign decision. We will examine the situation and take corrective action.” They added that these “corrective measures” would be discussed and settled by the DAE with the IAEA in the negotiations for an India-specific safeguards agreement.
Source : The Hindu