US lauds India's commitment to n-safeguards
A US official Friday commended India’s willingness to adopt the same responsibilities and practices as other leading countries with advanced nuclear technology.
“India agreed to adopt the same responsibilities and practices as other leading countries with advanced nuclear technology, by taking a number of concrete steps,” said US Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary Geoffrey R. Pyatt, while speaking at the ‘India-US Nuclear Energy Safety Summit’ here.
Pyatt said that India agreed to demarcate its civilian and military nuclear facilities and voluntarily placed its civilian nuclear facilities under International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguards.
These included 14 thermal power reactors, several upstream and downstream facilities, and nine research facilities. India also filed its declaration with the IAEA regarding these civilian facilities and agreed to a further additional protocol applicable to these facilities to demonstrate that they would not in any way contribute to India’s strategic programme.
India also harmonised its national export controls with that of the Nuclear Suppliers Group and Missile Technology Control Regime to ensure that the domestic companies complied with India’s international commitments of not transferring sensitive technologies to countries of concern.
Lastly, Pyatt said that India committed to maintain its unilateral moratorium on nuclear testing and agreed to work with the US to conclude a multilateral Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty to irreversibly - and on a global basis - reduce the amount of fissile material available for nuclear weapons.
“These steps clearly demonstrated to the world India’s commitment to preventing proliferation from its civil-nuclear programme and brought India’s domestic system into closer conformity with international non-proliferation standards,” Pyatt noted.
He pointed out that the groundwork for where the two countries stand today and will go tomorrow was laid in last year’s joint statement between US President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
