Selling uranium: Australia’s hypocrisy

If the ban is overturned India will be able to meet its nuclear energy growth while Pakistan will continue to struggle

Hassan Khan November 18, 2011
The politics of nuclear proliferation is due to take centre-stage with Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard lobbying to overturn a ban on the sale of uranium to India. And in this case, India has been put in a “class of its own” by the Australian prime minister, who added that the policy shift would apply only to India and not open up potential sales to Israel or Pakistan. So what is the basis for this hypocrisy?

India, like Pakistan, has not signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. However, fortunately or unfortunately for Islamabad, New Delhi has increasingly become Washington’s economic and geopolitical counterweight to China.

In that context, America signed a landmark civil nuclear agreement with India in 2008 over the use of uranium for nuclear energy and even though critics accused the United States of undermining the global non-proliferation regime, the deal was seen by then President George W Bush as the centrepiece of a new strategic relationship with India.

The double standard being applied by the West and the various multinational bodies under its wings, including the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) is unconscionable. Should countries such as Pakistan, North Korea and Iran continue to face the heat and become increasingly isolated for pursuing their nuclear programmes while countries such as India and Israel can play their ‘get-out-of-jail-free’ card for being favourites of countries that call the shots in the world?

Regardless of whether the geopolitics of the region permits such discriminatory policies, Pakistan will be at a loss if the ban is overturned. Uranium from Australia would help India, hampered by fuel shortages, to meet an ambitious target for nuclear energy growth, while Pakistan would continue to struggle to meet its energy challenges.

The move is even more disconcerting for Pakistan when the implications of other states following suit is considered. Even though Australia had supported the US-India nuclear agreement as a member of the 46-member NSG, it had continued to refuse to sell uranium to India until now. For India, the “discriminatory and flawed” nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which only allows countries which had tested nuclear weapons before 1967 to legally possess them, seems no longer of consequence — but it certainly does to its neighbours.


WRITTEN BY:
Hassan Khan The writer holds a BA in political science from the University of California, Santa Barbara and is a sub-editor at The Express Tribune hassan.khan@tribune.com.pk
The views expressed by the writer and the reader comments do not necassarily reflect the views and policies of the Express Tribune.

COMMENTS (58)

Maulana Diesel | 12 years ago | Reply Its all got to do with money. India at the moment is on a huge defence buying spree worth hundreds of billions of dollars and the West with its weak economies are more than willing to get on all fours to make the sale. The crap about nuclear proliferation etc is just BS to deflect the realities on the ground. The US gave nuclear knowhow to Israel and Canada provided it to India. Right now the West needs India to counter China and they will sell their mothers and sisters to make that work. Although it is not going to work. Also, Pakistan does NOT need to import any uranium from Australia - we have plenty of our own!
Observer | 12 years ago | Reply @kemal: "The world doesn’t owe a wooden nickel to either Pakistan or India; however, India, unlike us, commands a lot more nuisance value, has played their cards well and are rightly benefiting from anything that comes there way.? It looks like you are one of those Pakistanis living in perpetual denial. The truth is that it is Pakistan that the world sees as a huge nuisance or a global migraine as Madelene Albright used to say. Pakistan is perceived as country that proliferates nuke technology and breeds global terrorists. On the other hand, India is looked upon as a responsible democracy and an ascending global economic power. Just setting the facts straight.
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