Thursday, 16 August, 2007

by Katherine Murphy
The Age

PAKISTANI cricketer turned politician Imran Khan has predicted that the Howard Government's decision to sell uranium to India will spark a new arms race on the subcontinent.

Khan, who leads the Movement for Justice party, told SBS Television last night that Australia's decision to export uranium would encourage generals in his country to spend more on weapons to counter India's access to nuclear fuel.

Australia has decided to sell uranium to India, but not Pakistan, because Foreign Minister Alexander Downer argues that India has a good record on weapons non-proliferation.

Khan said last night that Australia should have been even-handed in its decision on uranium exports. He said funds in Pakistan would now be diverted from human development to arms development, "and we will have a sort of arms race in the subcontinent which poor people in our countries cannot afford".

Asked whether Australia should have made the decision, he replied: "Absolutely not."

In comments that defy the upbeat assessments from Canberra that selling uranium to Delhi will make the world safer, India's chief scientific adviser, Rajagopala Chidambaram, said Delhi would decide which of its nuclear plants to open to inspectors and which would remain closed off.

In an interview with The Hindu newspaper, Mr Chidambaram said: "Whatever reactors we put under safeguards will be decided at India's discretion."

He said India had no intention to quarantine its military program from its civilian program because nuclear scientists would work across both programs.

"We are not firewalling between the civil and military programs in terms of manpower or personnel. That's not on," Dr Chidambaram said.

His comments followed the nuclear co-operation agreement struck between Washington and Delhi. Dr Chidambaram was a key player in those negotiations.

That agreement will form a template for the Howard Government, which plans to pursue its own safeguards agreement to sell uranium to the subcontinent.

Mr Downer said selling uranium to India would make the world safer because its nuclear plants would be subject to international inspections for the first time.

He said there was no way the uranium could be used for military purposes.

Last night Mr Downer told the ABC that United Nations inspectors would ensure the uranium remained in the civilian program.

But the comments of Dr Chidambaram reveal that India will retain discretion over which plants are in the net and which remain closed to the rest of the world.

He also said new fast-breeder reactors should stay outside inspections. "Now, anything which requires advanced R&D, we don't want to slow it down by having someone looking over their shoulder," he said.

Australia's decision is a groundbreaking shift in foreign policy, which had prohibited the sale of uranium to countries outside the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Labor leader Kevin Rudd condemned the decision yesterday.

"It is a very bad development indeed when we have the possibility of the Government of Australia stepping outside the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and saying it's OK to sell uranium (to a country) which isn't a signatory," he said.

Greens leader Bob Brown said: "Australia is directly fuelling the production of nuclear weapons for a country which will soon have rockets that will reach Australia."