IAEA to offer nuclear oversight assurance for India/Canada nuclear deal ..no real oversight?

“”It defies logic that the Nuclear Suppliers Group would provide an exemption for nuclear trade with India, thereby ‘rewarding’ a country that is neither a member of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty nor a signatory of the Comprehensive Test-Ban Treaty — and continues to produce fissile material,” Jaramillo wrote.”

“”We don’t oversee, we’ll be receiving those assurances from the IAEA,” Aurele Gervais, a spokesman with the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, told The Canadian Press.

“The agreement that was successfully negotiated and will be signed in the near future will ensure that Canada receives the necessary assurances from India and from the International Atomic Energy Agency that the materials will be peacefully used.”

India hasn’t signed the non-proliferation or test-ban treaties but in February 2009 it agreed to begin reporting to the UN-based IAEA on its civilian nuclear plants.”

Harper’s civilian nuclear trade deal ends Canada’s long freeze on armed India

By Jennifer Ditchburn, The Canadian Press November 6, 2012 7:20 PM

NEW DELHI – A long-delayed nuclear co-operation deal that will see Canadian uranium shipped to nuclear-armed India has been negotiated to “achieve all of our objectives in terms of non-proliferation,” Prime Minister Stephen Harper said Tuesday.

Harper and his Indian counterpart Manmohan Singh announced the completion of negotiations on the technical details that will permit a nuclear co-operation agreement to be ratified.

[…]

Nuclear trade talks between India and Canada began in January 2009 but progressed slowly, blowing past Harper’s November 2009 visit to the South Asia giant.

[…]

India used a Canadian-supplied reactor to create the plutonium for its “Smiling Buddha” nuclear test blast in 1974.

The detonation harmed bilateral relations for two decades. It also sparked a nuclear sales moratorium and helped boost the global non-proliferation movement.

India has never signed the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons or the Comprehensive Test-Ban Treaty.

So the Canada-India deal is a watershed moment in the nuclear movement that goes beyond simply bilateral trade, say experts.

Even if Canadian uranium never makes it near a weapons facility, our exports will still free up India’s domestic supply, said Cesar Jaramillo, a nuclear disarmament expert with Project Ploughshares.

“India requires uranium for both its civilian and military nuclear programs and, since it is generally in short supply domestically, the uranium imported for civilian needs may allow the country to allocate more of its domestic holdings for the military,” Jaramillo said in an email.

More fundamentally, the deal signals that nuclear co-operation is acceptable with what remains effectively a rogue nuclear state.

“It defies logic that the Nuclear Suppliers Group would provide an exemption for nuclear trade with India, thereby ‘rewarding’ a country that is neither a member of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty nor a signatory of the Comprehensive Test-Ban Treaty — and continues to produce fissile material,” Jaramillo wrote.

Warren Mabee, director of the Queen’s University Institute for Energy and Environmental Policy in Kingston, Ont., said it is unclear what has changed from two years ago when concerns about weapons safeguards stalled the talks.

“Are we comfortable enough that the checks and balances are out there that will prevent those types of weapons from being generated or used?” Mabee asked. “Or have we just stopped worrying about that because now we’re too focused on the economy?”

[…]

A Canadian government official in New Delhi, speaking on background, said only a last legal vetting and French and Hindi translation of the English “administrative arrangement” document stands in the way of the final signing and coming-into-force of the deal.

Details of the pact will remain secret, said the official.

But it appeared Tuesday that Canada may not have received all the oversight powers it initially wanted to trace Canadian uranium use once it arrives in India.

Instead, the deal ensures materials will go only to “facilities subject to safeguards applied by the International Atomic Energy Agency,” or IAEA, according to a background document.

“We don’t oversee, we’ll be receiving those assurances from the IAEA,” Aurele Gervais, a spokesman with the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, told The Canadian Press.

[…]

— With files from Bruce Cheadle in Ottawa

http://www.montrealgazette.com/technology/Harpers+civilian+nuclear+trade+deal+ends+Canadas+long+freeze/7507410/story.html