Australia moves closer to uranium sales to India

Sep 26, 2006, 10:43 GMT

Sydney - It might be possible for India to import uranium from Australia without signing the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said Tuesday.

Canberra could end up following the lead of the United States Government and skirting the NPT requirement with a bilateral safeguards agreement, he said.

'We'd have to see all of that (US-India deal) in operation to work out whether this was really going to be a satisfactory solution,' Downer told national broadcaster ABC. 'It sounds like, on balance, quite a good idea. But whether it would be such a good idea that we would sell uranium to India, I don't know. At the moment, I think it's best we stick with our current policy.'

On Monday Prime Minister John Howard flagged a softening in Australia's policy requiring importers to be NPT signatories.

'Certainly our policy to date has been to prohibit sales to countries which are not signatories to the nuclear non-proliferation treaty,' Howard said. 'But as time goes by, if India were to meet safeguard obligations, some Australians would see it as anomalous that we would sell uranium to China, but not India.'

China, which is a signatory to the NPT, in April signed a contract to import uranium from Australia.

Australia has 40 per cent of the world's known reserves and is the top exporter. Uranium prices have almost quadrupled in the past three years. The value of Australia's exports, 546 million Australian dollars (412 million US dollars) in the year to June 30, are expected to reach 790 million Australian dollars (592 million US dollars) this fiscal year.

Howard visited India in March and was pressed by Indian counterpart Manmohan Singh to allow sales of uranium. He agreed to send a delegation to India and the US to study the agreement between Washington and Delhi to share nuclear power technology.

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