25 July 2007: for immediate release
The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament today condemned the approval of the US-India nuclear co-operation deal by the Indian cabinet. This opens the way for nuclear technologies and materials to be supplied by the US to a state that defies international opinion by remaining outside the global non-proliferation regime.
The deal, first broadly agreed in July 2005 but only finalised last Friday will mean the US will ship nuclear fuel and technologies to India. In exchange, India will open its civilian – but not military – nuclear reactors to international inspection. Details of whether the US has agreed to Indian demands that the deal permit New Delhi to conduct further nuclear weapons tests and reprocess fuel for weapons production are yet to be released.
Kate Hudson, Chair of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, said, “Rewarding India with this deal is rank hypocrisy from the US. If it was genuinely concerned with preventing the spread of nuclear weapons the US would not operate one rule for their allies and one rule for the rest.”
“India has twice gone to the brink of nuclear war, in 1999 and 2001/02. But rather than placing sanctions on the Indian nuclear programme or facilitating negotiations for both India and Pakistan to disarm in parallel, the US has put its narrow interests above regional stability.”
Neither India nor Pakistan are signatories to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), with Israel being the other state not to have signed up, but to have developed nuclear weapons. North Korea, previously a member of the NPT, left in order to develop nuclear weapons.
ends
Notes to Editors:
1. For further information and interviews please contact Ben Soffa, CND’s Press & Communications Officer, on 0207 7002350 or 07968 420859
2. The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) is one of Europe’s biggest single-issue peace campaigns, with over 35,000 members in the UK. CND campaigns for the abolition of all nuclear weapons everywhere.
Ben Soffa , Press Officer
Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND)
Registered office: Mordechai Vanunu House, 162 Holloway Road, London N7 8DQ
Tel: 020 7700 2393 Mob: 07968 420 859 Fax: 020 7700 2357