Australia mulls selling uranium to India

May 11, 2006, 2:05 GMT

Sydney - Australia is considering selling uranium to India despite its refusal to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), news reports said Thursday.

A deal between the two could become possible if India allowed International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspections of its nuclear facilities, The Australian newspaper said.

The speculation follows a meeting in Delhi last week, attended by India's senior foreign ministry diplomat Shyam Saran and Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) deputy secretary David Ritchie.

DFAT would not comment on the outcome of the talks.

In March, Prime Minister John Howard visited India and was pressed by his Indian counterpart Manmohan Singh to allow sales of uranium.

Howard at the time agreed to send a delegation to India and the United States to learn more about an agreement reached in March between Washington and Delhi, over the sharing of nuclear power technology.

Australia is the world's second-largest supplier of uranium. It exports to 26 countries and has 40 per cent of the world's easily recoverable reserves of uranium.

The Indian government has refused to sign the NPT because it restricts nuclear weapons to those countries which were in possession of them when the treaty was drawn up in 1970.

Howard has come under pressure from critics to hold firm to current government policy, which offers no uranium sales to countries that are not NPT signatories.

The opposition Labor Party's Martin Ferguson, spokesman on resources, said signing should remain a prerequisite for considering uranium sales.

'Australians want to know that our uranium is used for peaceful purposes only and it is a real concern to me that the UN failed to strengthen the NPT last year,' Fergusen said. 'As the world's second largest supplier of uranium, Australia has an obligation to strengthen, not undermine, the NPT.'

The Greens Christine Milne, a member of the upper house, also condemned the idea of entering negotiations.

'If you're going to sell outside the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, does that mean to say we are not going to sell to Israel? Are we now going to sell to Pakistan?' Milne said.