Canada urges India to open up nuclear reactor
(Reuters)
Updated: 2005-12-20 10:41

Canada urged India on Monday to allow nuclear inspectors access to a Canadian-supplied reactor where experts say the country produces a significant amount of its weapons-grade plutonium.

That deal has come under fire from the U.S. Congress and from non-proliferation experts who say the case of the 40-megawatt reactor raises questions about India's trustworthiness.

In a statement, Canada said it has urged U.S. and Indian officials to designate the reactor a civilian facility open to inspection by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

The United States is directly affected because it supplied Cirus with "heavy water," which is used in some reactors to moderate nuclear fission.

"Our 1956 bilateral agreement, through which we provided India with the Cirus research reactor, states that that reactor and products resulting from its use would be employed for peaceful uses only," said the statement, read by Canadian diplomat Kelly Anderson.

Designating Cirus a civilian facility "would respect the peaceful assurances of our original agreement," Anderson said at a program sponsored by the Monterey Institute's Center for Non-proliferation Studies.

'SIGNIFICANT AMOUNT'

Canada cut off nuclear cooperation with India in 1974 after plutonium from Cirus was used in India's first nuclear test. At the time, India called the test "peaceful." It resumed testing in 1988 and now acknowledges its nuclear weapons capability.

The U.S. administration maintains India has an excellent non-proliferation history, thus meriting the major changes in U.S. law and international regulations needed to permit previously-banned civilian nuclear cooperation with India.

India, along with neighboring Pakistan and Israel, has not signed the nuclear non-proliferation treaty.

Nuclear expert Leonard Spector, who heads Monterey's Washington office, said Cirus is now "embedded in the nuclear weapons program of India." Plutonium produced by Cirus should be sequestered from India's military inventory, he added.

Former IAEA inspector David Albright estimated that about 25 percent of India's stockpile of weapons-grade plutonium came from Cirus. This is a "significant amount ... so this is a real issue," he said.

In a recent interview with Reuters, India's ambassador to the United States, Ronan Sen, said his government would not designate Cirus or other research reactors as civilian facilities, and hence they would not be subject to international inspection.

Asked on Monday if that remained India's position, an embassy spokesman declined comment, noting that Indian foreign secretary Shyam Saran is in Washington this week for talks.