Wade Boese, "US Joins Others Seeking Nuclear Export Criteria," Arms Control Today, May 08.

The United States recently gave up its campaign to convince other nuclear suppliers to prohibit certain sensitive nuclear exports. It has now joined an alternative effort to adopt criteria to strictly limit such transactions, although Canada and a few other countries have objected to some aspects of the initiative.

A week after the Feb. 4, 2004, revelation of the Abdul Qadeer Khan nuclear black-market network, President George W. Bush proposed several initiatives to curb the spread of nuclear material and technology. (See ACT, March 2004.) One of those proposals urged suppliers not to transfer uranium-enrichment and plutonium reprocessing technologies to states without existing facilities for those purposes. Both capabilities can be used to produce nuclear fuel as well as nuclear weapons, but Bush argued that “enrichment and reprocessing are not necessary for nations seeking to harness nuclear energy for peaceful purposes.”

Although not all of them are currently operating, enrichment and/or reprocessing facilities exist in 15 countries: Argentina, Brazil, China, France, Germany, India, Iran, Israel, Japan, the Netherlands, North Korea, Pakistan, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Of those states, Argentina, Brazil, Germany, Japan, and the Netherlands have not developed nuclear weapons or are not under suspicion of covertly pursuing such arms.

[...]

Canada, as well as South Africa reportedly to a lesser extent, have objected to the black box approach, arguing that it conflicts with an NPT provision allowing countries to acquire and develop nuclear technology for peaceful purposes. Both countries have significant uranium deposits and are eyeing the option of trying to profit more from developing the capacity to enrich the uranium for sale as nuclear fuel rather than simply exporting uranium.

...Canada’s well-known opposition to the US black box approach casts doubt on whether it will again support extending the moratorium [by the G8 on enrichment and reprocessing technology transfer.]

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Neil King Jr, "US ends effort to ban sale of enrichment technology," Wall Street Journal, April 19,2008.

WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration has given up its push for an international ban on sales of uranium-enrichment technology to nonnuclear states, a move that will complicate its nuclear diplomacy toward both Iran and India, and could open the way for a wave of new entrants into the enrichment club.

The concession was made under heavy pressure from Canada, which wants the right to build uranium-enrichment plants to export the lucrative enriched fuel for nuclear-power plants. It marks an about-face for President Bush, who called in February 2004 for a ban on new countries becoming enrichment powers. The U.S. then persuaded Canada and other reluctant members of the Group of Eight top industrialized countries to agree to a nuclear-sales moratorium, a ban the group has renewed every year since....

The policy shift within the administration comes after lengthy debate between the White House and the State Department over how to accommodate Canada's quest to become an enrichment state. Canada produces, and then exports in raw form, more than a quarter of the world's uranium....

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S Rajagopalan, "23 US organisations launch coalition to block N-deal," NewIndPress.com, January 17, 2008.

These reasons to feel uplifted must be balanced against other reasons to believe that parallel civil society organizations in India and Pakistan have been marginalized. More on that later.

Jim

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WASHINGTON: In a new move aimed at blocking the Indo-US civil nuclear deal, 23 different American organisations have got together and launched a coalition to work with the US Congress and groups in 24 countries on this issue.


Announcing its “Campaign for Responsibility in Nuclear Trade”, the coalition claimed that the Indo-US pact would “dangerously weaken” non-proliferation efforts, embolden Iran and North Korea to develop nuclear weapons and “further destabilise” South Asia, particularly Pakistan.

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"Critics try to sway debate on US-India nuclear deal," Reuters.

Nearly 100 nongovernmental organizations and 25 individuals made their case in a letter to the 45 nations of the Nuclear Suppliers Group, which governs international nuclear trade, and to some board members of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N. nuclear watchdog.

[The letter calls on the IAEA and the NSG to ensure that the deal does not jeopardize the international nonproliferation regime. It calls on India to stop producing fissile material for atomic bombs and to permanently end nuclear testing.In India, the deal is criticized by the Communist coalition members of the ruling Congress Party, who believe it would infringe on Indian sovereignty. -jlt]

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