Australia reconsiders nuclear deal with Russia

Australia reconsiders nuclear deal with Russia

(NSI News Source Info) CANBERRA - September 1, 2008: Australia is reconsidering a pact to sell uranium to Russia following its military push into Georgia, Foreign Minister Stephen Smith warned on Monday. He spoke as the head of a parliamentary committee examining the deal that would allow sales of uranium for use in Russia's civil nuclear power industry, expanding on the terms of a 1990 agreement, raised fears the yellowcake could be diverted for nuclear weapons use. Smith told parliament that Australia would take into account Russia's actions in Georgia and the current state of Moscow's ties with Canberra when deciding whether to ratify the pact signed by the two countries last year. "When considering ratification, the government will take into account not just the merits of the agreement but recent and ongoing events in Georgia and the state of Australia's bilateral relationship with the Russian Federation," Smith said. Smith said he made Australia's views clear to Russia's ambassador when he summoned the envoy last week to call on Moscow to pull its troops in Georgia back to the positions they held before the conflict began on August 8. He also criticised Russia's decision to recognise the independence of the Georgian rebel regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia as unhelpful. Kelvin Thompson, who chairs the parliamentary treaties committee, meanwhile said he had concerns over whether Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin would honour the terms of the civilian nuclear agreement. "I think that we could supply uranium to him and if he changed his mind about the uses to which he was going to put it, I don't think we'd have any effective comeback at all. "Recently he's taken South Ossetia and another province off Georgia and there's no real comeback over that," he added. Russia has been fiercely criticised by a range of Western countries since its tanks and troops burst into Georgia last month to push back a Georgian offensive to retake South Ossetia, which broke away from Tbilisi in the early 1990s with Moscow's backing. Russian troops still hold positions in western Georgia, serving in what Moscow describes as a peacekeeping mission. Tbilisi calls them an occupation force. Given the current situation in Georgia, Thompson said, Australia should at least consider delaying ratifying the 2007 agreement until after a review of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, scheduled for 2010. He said another concern was that his parliamentary treaties committee heard Monday that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) had not carried out any inspections in Russia since 2001. "There has been a nuclear smuggling problem in the past and Russia and states of the former USSR are involved in the large majority of documented incidents. There needs to be a proper regime of inspections," he said. The committee must submit a report on the agreement to the government which Smith said Canberra would take into account before making a final decision on ratification of the pact. However Australian Safeguards and Non-Proliferation Office director general John Carlson said it was unlikely Russia would use Australian uranium for the production of nuclear weapons. "Australian uranium won't be used for weapons because Russia has such an enormous surplus there's no reason why it would even think of doing so," he said.