Australia to sell uranium to India

Canberra signed an administrative deal with New Delhi for exports held up for years over concerns about weapons use

Australia agreed to supply uranium to India, ending a stalemate in talks since 2014 following New Delhi’s refusal to sign a nuclear non-proliferation treaty.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese signed an administrative deal on Thursday, facilitating an agreement on exports of the nuclear material, they said in a joint announcement in Melbourne.

The ‘administrative arrangement’ will enable long-term Australian uranium exports to India for peaceful purposes and under IAEA safeguards.

Australia also reiterated its backing for India’s membership in the Nuclear Suppliers’ Group.

Canberra has the world’s largest known resources of the radioactive metal used in nuclear power plants, and in nuclear weapons. Australia has no nuclear power or weapons, and hence all of the metal is exported.

India has not signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which recognizes only the US, China, Britain, France, and Russia as nuclear weapons powers. Australia has signed the pact and refuses to sell uranium to non-signatories.

New Delhi calls the treaty discriminatory, as it recognizes only states that tested nuclear devices before January 1967 as legitimate nuclear weapon states. India first tested a nuclear weapon in 1974, making it the first nation apart from the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council to conduct a confirmed nuclear test.

The country was hit with international technology sanctions and uranium trade bans after it conducted nuclear tests again in 1998.

List of Outcomes: Visit of Prime Minister @narendramodi to Australia