Infopuntual

A recent agreement on nuclear fuel reprocessing between United States and India means bad news for the Non Proliferation Treaty. The recent Review Conference of such Treaty was a complex diplomatic exercise to achieve a consensual result that will keep in force the purposes and objectives that the instrument pursues. Many problems had to be negotiated in order to obtain a reasonably satisfactory result. Among them, the claims of many States that all nuclear commerce should be made only between NPT Party States.

This complex condition was able to be overcome with diplomatic euphemisms since the Nuclear Suppliers Group had already granted an exception to India in virtue of the Nuclear Cooperation Agreement subscribed between United States and India. The Indian market is also a source of interest for every States that participates in the nuclear market and is logical that it is so due to the huge amount of possibilities that it offers. Nonetheless, the fight against nuclear proliferation demands everybody to act with prudence in particular the nuclear technology Supplier States.

This means, among other things, to have in mind the opportunity of such cooperation and the range of the technologies involved in the agreements subscribed with NPT Non Party States.

Opportunity makes the international momentum in terms of non proliferation when Iran and North Korea are two examples, though not the only ones, of concern. Regarding this, that the signature of a new bilateral instrument between United States and India was neither timely nor responsible as it is produced, among many other matters, when China tries to cooperate with another Nuclear Weapon State as Pakistan is, producing an eventual new situation of exception. That possibility could be grim in terms of non proliferation policy.

The reach of the bilateral agreement is also concerning when it refers to a particularly sensitive technology as nuclear fuel reprocessing due to the plutonium that emerges from the separation. Enrichment and reprocessing are two of the most complex words in the nuclear dictionary.

It is obvious that a Pandora’s Box has been opened in the use of sensitive technologies with consequences in the field of nuclear non proliferation. It is regretful that the one who actually did it is exactly the one who claims other States to behave differently. It is grave that, occasionally, businesses are more important than principles particularly when they refer to peace and international security.

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