Rajeev Sharma
Tribune News Service New Delhi, August 31
The United States has removed six Indian nuclear and space facilities from the Department of Commerce’s Entity List, meaning that India can look forward to supply of enriched uranium in near future.
Sources in South Block, upbeat about Washington’s decision, said the development paved the way for supply of enriched uranium and meant that Indian nuclear reactors would no longer be starving of fuel. However, New Delhi would have to wait for several months. The supply of this commodity might start sometime in the first quarter of 2006.
Before the international community started supplying enriched uranium to Indian companies, a two-tier approval would have to come from the US Congress and Senate, and then from the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG). In case the US Congress and the Senate blocked the approval, President George Bush would have the discretion to use his waiver.
President Bush had indicated to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh during the latter’s recent bilateral visit to the US that he would use Presidential waiver to implement the Indo-US nuclear deal, if it was required.
The US ruling was effective from yesterday. The removal of export and re-export license requirements for the six Indian facilities was expected to reduce the number of license applications for exports and re-exports to India and increase high-technology trade between the two countries.
Three of the six Indian facilities removed from the Entity List were Department of Atomic Energy facilities at Tarapur, Rajasthan, and Kudankulam. Tarapur and Rajasthan were under International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguards. Kudankulam 1 & 2 was under construction and would be placed under safeguards when completed. The Government of India and the IAEA had agreed that this facility would be subject to IAEA safeguards upon completion.
The other three entities were Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) subordinate entities, specifically, the ISRO Telemetry, Tracking and Command Network (ISTRAC), the ISRO Inertial Systems Unit (IISU), Thiruvananthapuram, and the Space Applications Centre (SAC), Ahmedabad.
In addition to removing these Indian facilities from the Entity List, the US Federal Register published on August 30, 2005 a ruling by Matthew S. Borman, the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Export Administration of the Department of Commerce, authorising the removal of license requirements for exports and re-exports of items controlled unilaterally by the United States for nuclear non-proliferation reasons (i.e., items that were not subject to the Nuclear Suppliers Group regime) to India, the US embassy here said today. This step was taken as part of the completion of the US-India Next Steps in Strategic Partnership.
These changes were important because they would increase high-technology trade between the two countries.
