IAEA to consider India atom inspections plan
VIENNA (Reuters) - The International Atomic Energy Agency's governing board will meet on August 1 to consider India's draft plan for nuclear inspections submitted to help launch a U.S.-Indian nuclear cooperation deal, officials said on Monday.
If the U.N. watchdog body approves the plan, India and the United States must win clearance from a 45-nation group that controls sensitive nuclear trade, then ratification by the U.S. Congress for the controversial nuclear deal to take force.
"A (special) meeting of the (35-nation) IAEA board of governors will take place on August 1 with the India Safeguards agreement on the agenda," Melissa Fleming, spokeswoman for the Vienna-based U.N. nuclear watchdog, said without elaborating.
After protracted delays caused by a split in the governing coalition over the 2005 deal, India took the first step toward implementing it last Wednesday by handing the draft nuclear safeguards plan to the IAEA board for approval.
The pact reached by India and the IAEA's inspectorate early this year would subject its declared civilian nuclear reactors -- 14 among 22 plants -- to regular non-proliferation checks.
Washington said on Thursday it would seek to expedite the nuclear cooperation accord over international and domestic hurdles with time running out before an effective deadline set by U.S. elections in November.
DISPUTED DEAL
The deal has aroused controversy since India is outside the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), tested nuclear bombs in 1974 and 1998 and says the accord will not curb its military nuclear program -- including the right to more tests if needed.
Washington says the deal would forge a strategic partnership with the world's largest democracy, help India meet exploding energy demand in an environmentally friendly way and open a nuclear market worth billions of dollars for Western firms.
Ahead of the August 1 meeting, IAEA board diplomats said, India would be asked to clarify passages in the inspections plan they said suggested that New Delhi could halt IAEA controls if nuclear fuel imports were interrupted, for example in protest at another nuclear test.
The lack of mention in the plan's annexe of facilities to be covered by inspections had also raised some concern, they said.
But analysts said the plan was likely to be approved since IAEA lawyers certified it met basic safeguards standards and the majority of Indian nuclear plants would be under U.N. scrutiny.
The U.S.-India bid for an unconditional waiver from nations in the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) may prove a harder sell, due to fears of setting a perilous precedent by puncturing rules against nuclear commerce with non-NPT states, diplomats say.
The NSG, which decides policy by consensus only, is likely to need two meetings from early September to resolve the matter.
India forwarded the inspections plan to IAEA governors after communists who had stymied moves to carry out the U.S.-Indian deal, contending it would make India a vessel of U.S. foreign policy, left the ruling coalition in protest last week.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's government is to undergo a confidence vote in parliament next week which his aides believe it will win with the new backing of a regional kingmaker party.
