Reprocessing: Now India puts ball in US court

The latest move signals a new political resolve in the UPA Government to bring the prolonged nuclear negotiations to a quick closure. It also lends operational flexibility to the Government’s steadfast and principled demand for an unambiguous right to reprocess spent fuel in the so called 123 agreement.

After a series of talks between the two sides in recent weeks, the issue of reprocessing had emerged as one of the main obstacles to the finalisation of the 123 agreement that defines the legal framework for proposed civilian nuclear cooperation with the US.

In a closing of ranks on the Indian side, all principal players in the negotiation—the Department of Atomic Energy, the Ministry of External Affairs and the PMO—have come to the judgement that there can be no further movement forward without an upfront and explicit right to reprocess the spent fuel.

When US Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Nicholas Burns was in Delhi earlier this month, the Centre did not mince any words in conveying this message to the Bush Administration.

For India, reprocessing is at the heart of its three-stage nuclear programme, which seeks to convert spent fuel from the first generation reactors into plutonium fuel for the second generation power plants.

Given its bitter experience with the Tarapur Nuclear Power plant built by the US in the 1960s (Washington would not let India to either reprocess or take back the spent fuel), India has good reasons to avoid any ambiguities in the 123 agreement.

Although President Bush is strongly committed to the principle of recycling plutonium, Washington bureaucracy has been dragging its feet by arguing that a prior right to reprocess might not pass muster with the US Congress. The 123 agreement will come into force only after a Congressional approval.

In the US there are entrenched fears that reprocessing is acutely vulnerable to proliferation threats, including potential diversion of plutonium for building weapons.

India has now sought to address these concerns by offering to build a dedicated reprocessing plant that will meet modern standards of safety and security. New Delhi has everything to gain and nothing to lose from the problem-solving approach it has now adopted on reprocessing.

The imported fuel and reactors will in any case be under international safeguards.

Building additional well safeguarded storage and reprocessing facilities will address the worldwide non-proliferation concerns without in any way affecting India’s nuclear weapons programme that is outside the ambit of international safeguards.

Building new reprocessing facilities should make it easier for India to adapt them to the contemporary international standards on physical safety and security.

The move could also eventually enable India to join the emerging international consensus behind the Bush Administration’s plans to promote civilian use of plutonium under effective international safeguards.

More immediately, New Delhi has made it easier for President Bush to take an early political decision on granting India the right to pursue its long sought plutonium option in nuclear electric power generation.