Nuclear deals benefit emerging economies

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: The hue and cry that is being raised by the BJP and Left Parties about India’s proposed nuclear deal with the US may have made (a strange sort of) sense had India been alone in sticking out its neck. That, at least, may have suggested that the government at the Centre was taking undue risks, bartering away sovereignty.

Sceptics may doubt that, thinking that you can fool some of the people all of the time. But they also know that you cannot fool all of the people all of the time—and altogether too many countries have been queuing up to sign up 123 agreement for peaceful cooperation with the US. They surely merit a second look?

They include such UNSC nuclear stalwarts as the People’s Republic of China, Russia—plus members of the Nuclear Supply Group (NSG) like Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada Japan, Kazakhstan, Republic of Korea, Romania, Russia, South Africa, Switzerland and Ukraine.

None of these nations appear to be unduly worried—either about issues of national sovereignty, or about the conditionalities embodied in the so-called 123 agreement, although the latter derive from the US Atomic Energy Act of 1954. Even Bangladesh, Colombia, Egypt, Indonesia, Morocco, Taiwan and Thailand are signatories to 123 agreement—as is Norway, a country that zealously guards its sovereign rights.

This disregard for ‘going it alone’ in matters of defence strategy should be noted by all those who inveigh against the 123 agreement. They need to wake up to the new reality of cooperation in nuclear trade, technology and materials.

As for the instance in hand, no significant nuclear transaction can occur before the US State Department has negotiated an agreement that meets the criteria which have been set out in Section 123 a (1) through (9), 42 USC 2151, with the advice of the Department of Energy. While such an agreement would not address specific programmes, it would provide a framework of non-proliferation controls for commercial nuclear energy transactions. And, to repeat, what is so surprising is the number of countries that have opted in.