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Indo-US relations : Nuclear fuel controversy

	February 26, 2001

Russia has asserted that nuclear fuel supply to India will not be stopped

under any outside pressure. Alexander Alekskeyev, Director of the Third Asia Department of the Russian Foreign Ministry said Russia would continue its nuclear fuel supply to India’s Tarapur power reactors despite American protest. He made the observation while is referring to US objections to the proposed Russian supplies for the Tarapur nuclear reactors in India and US Defence Secretary Rumsfeld’s remarks that Russia was an active proliferator, assisting countries like Iran, North Korea and India with technologies that are threatening the US, Western Europe and the Middle East.



Alekskeyev said in Moscow that Russia as a member of the Nuclear Suppliers Group was bound by certain international obligations and had not violated any of them. He noted that while the 39-member Nuclear Suppliers Group is committed not to provide countries whose programs are not under IAEA safeguards, Tarapur reactors in Mumbai were under international safeguards.

Just a few days after the US Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, labelled Russia as an “active proliferator” of missile and nuclear technologies to such countries as Iran, Iraq and India, President Putin called a meeting of the National Security Council on Feb. 23 which called for additional measures to prevent illegal export of sensitive technologies. However, a senior Security Council official, Nikolai Upsenksy said the proposed tightening of export control will not affect Russian nuclear supplies to India despite objections from the United States. Mr. Upsenksy, who is Head of the International Security Department of the National Security Council, referring to Tarapur nuclear fuel supply said, “It is an absolutely clean contract as regards our international obligations.”

It is understood that at last month’s meeting of the Nuclear Suppliers Group [an international body that regulates the transfer of nuclear material to countries, proscribing those such as India which are not NPT signatories] in Vienna, “western countries with the exception of France” had been highly critical of the Russian decision on Tarapur. But Russia argued that according to the NSG rules, a specific amount of nuclear fuel could be supplied to countries if the safety of the reactor is involved. “That Tarapur was an exceptional case and, therefore, Russia was not violating the NSG rules”,

According to highly placed sources in New Delhi, Russia is willing to help in the construction of four more nuclear reactors for the Kudamkulam power plant in Tamil Nadu, ignoring objections of the international community on transferring nuclear material to a non-NPT signatory country like India. Sources said, the offer was made during the Indo-Russian Joint Commission meeting in Moscow last month where the Indian side was led by Finance Minister, Yashwant Sinha. If the deal is approved, this will bring to a total eight nuclear rectors at the Kudamkulam power plant.

Pakistan has also joined the chorus of criticizing Russian supply of nuclear fuel for Tarapur plant. Its spokesman said on Feb. 20 that it will not help peace and stability in the region as, he alleged, India would use it for the growth of its nuclear capability which was outside the purview of the IAEA. The Pakistani Ambassador in Washington, Ms Maleeha Lodhi, called for cancellation of the supply arrangement.

It may be recalled that in an interview on Feb. 14 with Jim Lehrer on PBS television, when asked about Russia’s objection to the US determination to build a missile defence system, Rumsfeld said, “Russia is an active proliferator. They are selling and assisting countries like Iran and North Korea and India and other countries with these technologies which are threatening other people including the United States and Western Europe and countries in the Middle East.” Quick on the heels of Rumsfeld’s comments came a statement by the US State Department spokesman, Philip Reeker. The US, he said, “deeply regretted” Russia’s supply of nuclear fuel to India’s Tarapur reactor because though Tarapur was under IAEA safeguards, the rest of India’s reactors were not. As if adding insult to injury, Reeker gratuitously remarked, “India...is indeed pursuing a nuclear weapons programme.” Earlier on Feb. 7, the US CIA chief, George Tenet told the Senate select Committee on Intelligence that Moscow as increasingly using arms and technology sales “as a tool to improve ties with its regional partners - China, India and Iran”.

Ironically, it was the United States which had built the Tarapur nuclear reactor and supplied the nuclear fuel initially to run the plant. It then transferred the responsibility to France which subsequently stopped the supply after it signed the NPT.

Tarapur was the country’s first nuclear power station built nearly 35 years ago by the USA which had also guaranteed the supply of its fuel, enriched uranium, throughout the plant’s life. From the very start, Tarapur has been under the IAEA safeguards. In spite of this, in the late seventies, after this country’s first nuclear explosion at Pokhran in 1974 and the subsequent election of President Jimmy Carter, the USA reneged on its commitment to supply the fuel required to run Tarapur. After prolonged and painful negotiations, it was agreed that France would supply enriched uranium on exactly the same terms and conditions on which America was doing earlier. This could continue only upto 1992. In that year, France, which had refused to sign the NPT ultimately decided to adhere to it. Consequently, India decided to import nuclear fuel from China, under continuing IAEA safeguards and Beijing readily agreed to sell it. Russia came into the picture in October last when the Russian President Vladimir Putin visited India.

Against this backdrop, political observers say, America’s demand on Russia not to supply India fuel for Tarapur is curious, to say the least. The stated American pretext is that India has not accepted fullscope safeguards as against safeguards in relation to specific foreign-aided nuclear facilities. But then this was precisely the position when the USA applauded the agreement with France and raised no objection to the subsequent agreement between India and China.



Criticism of US attitude

Many in India were shocked. Mr.Rumsfeld’s statement was widely interpreted as bracketing India with Iran and North Korea as countries which threatened the region he had mentioned. To be fair to him, his statement was made in the context of his strong criticism of Russia’s opposition to the US National Missile Defence [NMD] plan which is violative of the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty between the two countries. The attack on India, Iran and North Korea, the argument may run, was incidental. Also going by its syntax, his statement suggested that the threat was posed by “these technologies” and not by the countries themselves. But, political observers say, even if the thrust of his statement was against Russia and his syntax reflected his true intention, he should not, have mentioned India’s name along with Iran’s and North Koreas. Clearly the US attitude towards India during the Cold War days has not vanished.

The US attitude, says a foreign policy analyst, C. Raja Mohan, amounts to living in glass house and yet throwing stones on others. He says, accusing others of violating arms control agreements does not sit well with an administration which wants to scrap the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty with Russia and has refused to ratify the CTBT which the US has sponsored with so much fanfare in the early 1990s. Mr. Rumsfeld thinks the ABM treaty is a relic of the Cold War. He argues that the conditions that generated the treaty no longer exist and hence wants to either revise or scrap the agreement. India too believes that the NPT is an anachronism. New Delhi argues the nuclear rules derived from the NPT are neither effective nor capable of addressing the complex realities on the ground. Just as Washington wants to change the nuclear rules, which prevent it from moving forward on missile defences, New Delhi too thinks the current non-proliferation regime must be revised to accommodate India’s interests. Both Russia and France believe the time has come to change some of the outmoded non-proliferation rules that end up targeting only India.

Prof. Summit Ganguly, a professor of Asian studies at the University of Texas, Austin, was critical of both Mr. Rumsfeld as well as the State Department, accusing them of being stuck in a “Cold War time warp. “He said, those in power must realise that the Cold War is over. He said, the comments of Rumsfeld and State Department spokesman are indicators that President Bush’s advisers have not come to term with the changed world order. “To club India with Iran is an insult”, fumed Prof. Ganguly. “This reveals how little India matters to Washington in spite of Secretary of State, Colin Powell’s encouraging remarks on US-India relations.” Stephen Cohen, senior fellow, foreign policy studies, at the Washington-based Brookings Institution, called the US an “unreliable defence partner” and said even if India wanted to engage the US in such a partnership, it would be hesitant to do so for this very reason.

Political observers say if these are the straws floating in the winds, the Indo-US relations may soon hit a squally patch. That would be a great pity. Man in India had expected the qualitative improvement in Indo-US ties which began late in the Clinton era, to gain further momentum with the coming of the Bush Administration. First, it would not, they had felt, insist on India signing the CTBT which it itself was against ratifying. Second, it was expected to take a harder line towards China on human rights and other issues than the Clinton Administration and this, they thought, might willy nilly, incline it more towards India. Third, important Indian functionaries like Mr. Brajesh Mishra, National Security Adviser, had even when the US presidential election was in the campaign stage, established contact with key people in the Bush team. Of them, Dr. Condoleeza Rice is now the National Security Adviser to President Bush and Dr. Paul Wolfowitz, Deputy Defence Secretary, Dr. Richard Haas, then Director of Foreign Policy Studies and Vice President of the Brookings Institution, has been appointed director of the South Asia Policy Planning Bureau of the State Department with direct access to Secretary of State, Colin Powell. This was very different from the situation when the first Clinton Administration had assumed office in 1992 and New Delhi had virtually no one in it whom it knew well.

In addition, some of the initial statements by top functionaries of the Bush Administration seemed most encouraging. In a 5-minute meeting in Vienna on Feb. 5, on the margins of the 37th annual security conference, Mr. Donald Rumsfeld, the US Defence Secretary, had told Mr. Brajesh Mishra that the Bush Administration was committed to maintaining the “momentum” in consolidating Indo-US relations. Earlier on Jan. 17, Gen. Powell had, in his statement prepared for the hearing on the confirmation as Secretary of State by the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee, referred to India as a country “that should grow more and more focused on the lens of our foreign policy...We must deal more wisely with the world’s largest democracy...India has the potential to keep the peace in the vast Indian Ocean area and its periphery. We need to work harder and more consistently to assist India in this endeavour, while not neglecting our friends in Pakistan”

This was the first time that one of the top most US functionaries publicly talked of such a role for India. It reflected a certain trust in India’s policies and confidence in its capabilities not manifested earlier.