NSG tightens rules, but US reassures India

New Delhi

24 June 2011

Access to sensitive nuclear technologies used for the enrichment of uranium or the reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel just got tougher, with the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) approving new guidelines to limit their transfers only to the countries complying with their non-proliferation obligations and that meet agreed standards for nuclear safeguards, safety and security.

On the face of it, the three non-NPT signatories of India, Pakistan and Israel could be affected by the amendments, but, equally, other countries of concern could be the targets, too. However, the US department of state has clarified that the new restrictions should not be construed as detracting from the "unique impact and importance" of the US-India nuclear deal or diluting the US' commitment to full civil nuclear cooperation with India.

Simply put, the new guidelines would not impinge or adversely affect the "clean" NSG exception given to India in September 2008 or restrict India's access to enrichment and reprocessing (ENR) technologies. Also, India remains on course for becoming the 47th member of the nuclear cartel, which was formed in 1974 in response to the nuclear test by India earlier that year.

A US state department press release said, "The NSG's NPT references, including those in the ENR guidelines, in no way detract from the exception granted to India by NSG members in 2008 and in no way reflect upon India's non-proliferation record." It also noted that "efforts in the NSG to strengthen controls on the transfers of ENR areconsistent with long-standing US policy that pre-dates the civil nuclear agreement [with India] and have been reaffirmed on an annual basis by the G-8 for years."

Further, it iterated the US' support for India's membership of the NSG and three other export control regimes -- the Australia Group, the Wassenaar Arrangement, and the Missile Technology Control Regime -- in a phased manner. The US was understood to have circulated a note on India's membership of the NSG, proposing in it that signing on to the NPT need not be a mandatory criterion. India recognises that becoming an NSG member will take time because the group operates by consensus, and all members, China included, need to unanimously make a decision.

On the eve of the NSG's meeting, India had voiced deep reservations about a move by the cartel to withhold the transfer of enrichment and reprocessing (ENR) technology to the non-NPT signatories. It had contended that doing so would dilute the import or the message of the exemption granted to India in 2008. Recently, foreign secretary Nirupama Rao had discussed this, and other matters, with Ellen Tauscher, the US under secretary of state for arms control and international security affairs, in Vienna. Ms Rao had also impressed upon her American interlocutor that India's membership of the four export control regimes should be a package deal.