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Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh talks with President Obama, right, during a visit to the White House in 2009.
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30 March 2010
U.S.-India Nuclear Pact Will Create Jobs, Clean Energy, March 30, 2010
By Merle David Kellerhals Jr.
Staff Writer
Washington — A final agreement between the United States and India to permit India to reprocess spent nuclear fuel will create jobs in both nations and move India closer to providing affordable energy for all its citizens, officials say.
“The United States and India have taken an important step toward implementing civil nuclear cooperation by completing negotiations on ‘arrangements and procedures’ for reprocessing U.S.-origin spent nuclear fuel,” the State Department said in announcing the conclusion of negotiations March 29 in Washington.
The reprocessing arrangement was negotiated under the 2008 U.S.-India nuclear initiative, known as a 123 Agreement. India will be able to reprocess U.S.-originated nuclear material under International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguards. Completion of these arrangements will ease participation by U.S. firms in India’s civil nuclear energy sector, estimated to be worth approximately $150 billion.
“Everything is moving forward. It was a very successful negotiation, a very successful agreement with a very significant partner of the United States,” Under Secretary of State Ellen Tauscher said in a State Department briefing March 29.
Timothy Roemer, U.S. ambassador to India, called the final accord “part of the great, win-win narrative of the U.S.-India global partnership.”
“These arrangements will help open the door for U.S. firms in India’s rapidly expanding energy sector, creating thousands of jobs for the citizens of both our countries,” Roemer added in a statement from New Delhi. “The United States and India are one step closer to ensuring greater access to clean and affordable energy and electricity for all Indians, particularly those most in need.”
Roemer said Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh shares President Obama’s vision of a world free of nuclear weapons. “We applaud India’s outstanding track record on nonproliferation issues, and we look forward to our continuing cooperation in this area,” he said.
The announcement was made about two weeks before leaders from 44 nations meet in Washington for the Global Nuclear Security Summit spearheaded by Obama as part of his efforts to move the world away from nuclear arms.
2008 NUCLEAR INITIATIVE
The October 2008 agreement gave India access to the world market for nuclear fuel and technology after a 33-year international freeze imposed in the wake of its first nuclear weapons test in 1974 and its subsequent refusal to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). The agreement, along with the U.S.-supported lifting of a parallel ban imposed by the 45-nation Nuclear Suppliers Group, furthered a key strategic, clean energy, environmental and commercial goal of the United States and represented nearly a decade of intensive diplomacy by the administrations of Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush.
India imports 75 percent of its oil, and Singh has argued that India needs a stronger investment in nuclear energy generation. India has four operating nuclear power reactors under IAEA safeguards. Under the U.S.-India accord, India is committed to separate its military and civilian activities and submit its entire civil program to international inspection.
Also under the 2008 agreement, India will place under voluntary safeguards a majority of its existing and planned nuclear power reactors — 14 of 22 — and all of its future civil reactors. Within a generation, it is estimated that nearly 90 percent of India’s reactors will be under IAEA safeguards.
The 2008 agreement, under which the March 29 agreement was reached, will remain in force for 40 years, and will continue in force for additional periods of 10 years unless either country gives notice to terminate it six months before the end of a period. The agreement can be terminated before its expiration on a year’s written notice.
