IAEA Text: Why Keep it Secret?

The text of the statement issued by the the Left parties -- CommunistParty of India (Marxist), Communist Party of India, Forward Bloc andRevolutionary Socialist Party

The UPA Government has refused to submit the draft text of the IAEASafeguards Agreement to the UPA-Left committee. As the experience of the 123agreement has shown, the claims of the Government made prior to the negotiationsare not borne out by the actual text. Thus the full text of the agreement isnecessary to clarify the major issues involved.

The first major issue relates to the possibility of the US terminatingcivilian nuclear cooperation with India for any reason in the future. Indiaalready had such an experience, when the US suspended nuclear fuel supplies tothe Tarapur Atomic Power Station in 1983, reneging upon a thirty year contractsigned in 1963. In the present case, the IAEA safeguards would continue even insuch a scenario, since they are applicable in perpetuity to the entire civiliannuclear energy sector. The text of the 123 agreement has very ambiguousreferences to India taking "corrective measures" if nuclear fuel suppliesfrom abroad are discontinued. Therefore, the text of the IAEA SafeguardsAgreement needs to be made available to see whether any corrective action ispossible on India’s part, if the US discontinues the fuel supplies.

Secondly, the 123 agreement claimed that the US would join India innegotiating with the IAEA an "India-specific fuel supply agreement".However, it is well-known that the IAEA is not at all concerned with fuel supplybut only with the imposition of safeguards on nuclear equipment and material.Therefore, it is important to know how the IAEA Safeguards Agreement providesfor the fuel supply assurances in the case of India as claimed in the 123agreement.

The key concerns expressed by the Left Parties regarding the IAEA SafeguardsAgreement and which have not been addressed by the UPA are the following:

• In case the US or other countries in the NSG renege on fuel supply assurances for imported reactors, will we have the ability to withdraw these reactors from IAEA safeguards?
• If US/NSG countries renege on fuel supply assurances, can we withdraw our indigenous civilian reactors from IAEA Safeguards?
• If we have to bring nuclear fuel from the non-safeguarded part of our nuclear programme for these reactors in case of fuel supply assurances not being fulfilled, will we have the ability to take it back again?
• What are the corrective steps that India can take if fuel supplies are interrupted by the US/NSG countries?
• What are the conditions that India will have to fulfill if the corrective steps are to be put into operation?

Once the text of the Safeguards Agreement is approved by the IAEA Board ofGovernors, which is what the UPA Government seeks to do now, the subsequentsteps require no participation at all by the Government of India. It is the USGovernment that takes the next steps – moving the NSG countries for the waiverand then placing the 123 Agreement before the US Congress. Therefore, it iscritical for the country that the IAEA Safeguards Agreement is discussed withfull transparency and not kept secret.

Why is the Manmohan Singh government keeping the draft of the IAEA Agreementsecret from the people of India?

Sd/-

(Prakash Karat)
General Secretary, Communist Party of India (Marxist)

(A.B. Bardhan)
General Secretary, Communist Party of India

(Debabrata Biswas)
General Secretary, All India Forward Bloc

(T.J. Chandrachoodan)
General Secretary , Revolutionary Socialist Party