I’m sure a 20-something pundit is blogging Something Very Important, but you can take a minute to learn that Ye Olde IAEA Board of Governors recently “approved”:http://www.iaea.org/OurWork/SV/Safeguards/sir_table.pdf the Additional Protocol to India’s IAEA Safeguards Agreement.
Siddharth Varadarajan has some “action.”:http://svaradarajan.blogspot.com/2009/03/india-and-additional-protocol.html
It’s going to happen on Monday, “Reuters tells me.”:http://in.reuters.com/article/topNews/idINIndia-37734620090129
The SGA will, of course, not prevent India from building more nuclear weapons, but, you know, details…
A submarine-wonk-colleague and I were just speculating this morning that yesterday’s “Russian sub accident that took the lives of 20 people”:http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5jfn6BiK-75B0F4qtfZgNe12N18jw occured on one of the “Project 971/Akula class”:http://www.nti.org/db/submarines/russia/index.html boats.
And indeed. Though the Russians are yet to release additional information on the incident, the Indian press seems certain that it was the “Akula boat meant for India”:http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Accident_on_Russian_submarine_meant_for_India_kills_20/articleshow/3690965.cms. I wrote about “that boat, the INS Chakra,”:http://www.wmdinsights.com/I21/I21_SA1_QuestionsPersist.htm some time ago.
Iran has been taking note of both the U.S.-India deal and Western treatment of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons for kind of a while.
Deputy head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization Mohammad Saeedi “recently weighed in on the former,”:http://www2.irna.ir/en/news/view/line-24/0810052485135218.htm expressing concern that the deal “has violated ” the NPT.
Saeedi then elaborated a bit:
The method used by several nuclear states to transfer the technology to non-members of the NPT, will create new crises for the international community, he added.
According to the NPT, only signatories to the treaty can make use of the rights mentioned in the treaty, Saeedi noted.
Cooperation in the area of transfer of nuclear technology to the NPT non-members will endanger the treaty, he said, adding that although India is enjoying nuclear weapons it is not a signatory to the NPT treaty.
“86-13”:http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSTRE49109W20081002?sp=true. No amendments.
Siddharth Varadarajan, who is allegedly on vacation, has a “copy”:http://svaradarajan.blogspot.com/2008/10/dear-bill-foreign-secretarys-letter.html of India’s September 10 Letter of Intent in which New Delhi talked about, among other things, buying nuclear reactors from the United States.
Some interesting tidbits in State’s answers to Questions for the Record submitted by Sen. Casey. Download “here.”:http://www.totalwonkerr.net/file_download/17
ISIS has some “action”:http://www.isis-online.org/publications/southasia/India_18September2008.pdf on centrifuge-related blueprints that were obtained from India for cheap. The institute also “responded”:http://www.isis-online.org/publications/southasia/India_DAE_19September2008.pdf to a related press release from India’s DAE.
Bottom line: it doesn’t look like a blanket denial.
I’m sure you all know that Bush “submitted it”:http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2008/09/20080910-6.html late Wednesday. HCFA has the documents “you need and want.”:http://foreignaffairs.house.gov/press_display.asp?id=555
The “NPAS”:http://www.hcfa.house.gov/110/press091108e.pdf and the “report”:http://www.hcfa.house.gov/110/press091108d.pdf regarding the determinations required by the Hyde Act are the key documents, I think.
The NPT is discriminatory because the P5, at least for a while, get to have nuclear weapons and no other countries do.
Allowing one – and only one – more country to have nuclear weapons somehow solves this problem, especially when that country has no Article VI obligations and (unlike the P5) hasn’t signed the CTBT.