Dean Rust: Questions Linger about India's Safeguards
The August 1 approval by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Board of Governors of an India-specific safeguards agreement was an important step toward implementing the July 2005 nuclear deal between U.S. President Bush and Indian Prime Minister Singh. Under this deal, President Bush pledged to seek an exemption from U.S. nonproliferation standards that have barred civil nuclear cooperation with India for nearly three decades. The President also committed to seeking an exemption from similar international rules adopted by the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) in 1992. The new safeguards agreement is important not only because it would be the mechanism to safeguard new nuclear supply to India, but it is necessary to fulfill India's commitment to place its indigenous civil nuclear program under IAEA safeguards. Negotiations on the various pieces of this deal were plagued from the start by a fundamental dispute: India has linked its safeguards undertaking to assurances of fuel supply over a reactor's lifetime, while U.S. law makes clear that safeguards must be maintained in perpetuity even if there is a fuel cutoff, for example, in response to an Indian nuclear test.