Uranium ban lifted

Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard's proposal was passed after a passionate debate about nuclear weapons and reactor safety following Japan's Fukushima nuclear reactor disaster.

Gillard argued that it was neither rational nor intellectually defensible to sell uranium to rising powers, like China, and not to India.

The reason behind Australia's long-standing ban on sales of uranium to India had been based on the fact that India is not a signatory of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

"Let's face the facts here: Our refusal to sell uranium to India is not going to cause India to decide that it will no longer have nuclear weapons," Gillard told her party cohorts.

Tough conditions

Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd warned, however, that India would need to meet "onerous" conditions before trade could begin and added that there would be "very long, detailed and tough negotiations."

Although Australia does not use nuclear power itself, it is the world's third largest uranium producer, behind Kazakhstan and Canada. It also has the world's biggest reserves of uranium.

Australia ships the key ingredient for nuclear fuel to China, the United States, Japan and Taiwan, but has refused to sell to India – long a sticking point in the two countries' otherwise cordial relations.

Defense Minister Stephen Smith backed Gillard's proposal, saying that India had voluntarily submitted to civilian nuclear checks by international regulators and that the new deal would "improve strategic, bilateral ties."

New Delhi has agreed to separate its civil and military nuclear facilities and abide by International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards under a 2005 accord with the United States, which Gillard cited as a precedent for her decision. These constraints, Smith said, "effectively give you the same protections that you get if a country signs the NPT."

Pakistan calls deal unfair

Pakistan, on the other hand, has said selling uranium to New Delhi, but not Islamabad, would be unfair because neither is a signatory to the 1970 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

"If Australia is going to lift the ban on a country which has not signed the NPT, it is much hoped that will also apply to Pakistan the same way," said Pakistan's High Commissioner to Australia, Abdul Malik Abdullah.

While neither country is a signatory of the NPT, New Delhi has a good record on not selling nuclear secrets.

By contrast, scientist AQ Khan, who is considered to be the father of Pakistan's nuclear weapons program, confessed in 2004 to illegally transferring nuclear technology to other countries, presumably North Korea and Iran.

In 2009, Khan was pardoned after five years of house arrest by the Pakistani government, which has repeatedly denied having any knowledge of his trafficking activities.

Author: Gregg Benzow (AFP, dpa)
Editor: Sarah Berning