Australia will not sell India the uranium it needs to fuel nuclear reactors that help it keep pace with soaring electricity demand until Delhi signs the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), officials said Tuesday. Foreign Minister Stephen Smith, speaking after a meeting in Perth with Shyam Saran, special envoy of the Indian prime minister, said that in government Labor would implement the policy it held to while in opposition.

 

"We went into the election with a strong policy commitment we would not export uranium to nation states who are not members of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty," Smith told reporters.

 

The government of former prime minister John Howard, which lost office in the November election, decided that it didn't make sense to ban uranium exports to India when it had agreed to ship uranium to China.

 

Australia has 40 per cent of the world's known reserves and is the top exporter.