If the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) does not agree soon on new guidelines for selling sensitive nuclear technology, there would be a good argument for dropping the effort, a senior Obama administration official said Oct. 18.
Speaking at the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Gary Samore, the White House arms control coordinator, said, “I think that if we are not able to reach agreement, my guess is that we should probably decide that this is an effort that was just not going to be successful.”
The decision five years ago by the
Uzi Landau made the comments March 9 at a conference in
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Board of Governors has adopted a resolution authorizing
In addition to approving the proposed text of an agreement with
During a Dec. 5 visit by Russian President Dmitry Medvedev to New Delhi, Russia agreed to provide India with four new nuclear power plants as part of a nuclear cooperation agreement between the two countries. The agreement marks the third such accord India has signed with nuclear suppliers since a Sept. 6 decision by the 45-member Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) to lift a long-standing prohibition against providing nuclear technology to India. (See ACT, October 2008.) India signed similar agreements with France and the United States in September and October, respectively (Continue)
The Bush administration succeeded Sept. 6 in its three-year campaign to secure a waiver for India from long-standing international nuclear trade restrictions. Three days of U.S. prodding and an Indian reiteration of its current nuclear testing moratorium pledge helped the United States overcome the last resistance of some nuclear suppliers to the sweeping policy reversal. With international trade restrictions on India removed, the U.S. Congress heeded Bush administration exhortations to bypass existing U.S. law to approve a bilateral U.S.-Indian nuclear cooperation agreement on an expedited basis. (Continue)