India Struggles to Put Its Nuclear House in Order

suchandra · January 20, 2007

NONPROLIFERATION

India Struggles to Put Its Nuclear House in Order

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/311/5759/318 vol 311 20 January 2006

Last year, the United States set out to bring India into the fold with a landmark agreement that would end the country’s pariah status as a non-signer of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT).

But that deal is now at risk as U.S. and Indian officials in New Delhi wrangle over a plan to split up India’s vast nuclear establishment into distinct civilian and military programs. The thorniest issue, Science has learned, is that India’s draft separation plan designates several key facilities – including all R&D centers – as military installations, placing them off-limits to nonproliferation safeguards.

India’s stance could scuttle the deal, non-proliferation experts warn. The two countries are racing to find a compromise before U.S. President George W.Bush visits India for a summit with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in early March.

Sweeping aside decades of animosity over India’s nuclear ambitions, Bush and Singh last July signed an agreement that would end an embargo that forbids NPT signers from trading with India in Nuclear materials and technology. In exchange, India would allow the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to inspect civilian facilities.

India pledged to erect a firewall between these installations, which would acquire nuclear know-how from abroad, and military ones beyond the IAEA's reach. This separation is “arguably the most important of [india’s] commitments”, the U.S.State Department’s lead negotiator. R.Nicholas Burns, under secretary for political affairs, testified in Congress last November.

It’s also deeply challenging to India’s government – and a political lightning rod. In India, “the hard-liners do not want this agreement, because they feel it will impinge on the military effort,” says Kenneth Luongo, executive director of RANSAC, a nonproliferation think tank in Washington, D.C. As part of the agreement, India would forswear further nuclear weapons tests, thus forming development of its arsenal.

Also disconcerting to hawks within India is that the separation plan would unravel the deliberate ambiguity around India’s nuclear program.”For historical reasons, no facilities are clearly demarcated as civilian or military,” says T.S. Gopi Rethinaraj, an arms-control expert at the National University of Singapore. Hundreds of nuclear specialists divide their time between civilian and weapons R&D. Like an operation to separate conjoined twins who share vital organs, splitting the nuclear establishment will be complex. “In identifying civilian nuclear facilities, we have to determine that they are of no national-security significance,” Anil Kakodkar, chief of India’s Atomic Energy Commission, told reporters at a recent press conference. “We will do this in a phased manner.”

Other concerns divide U.S. policymakers, the nuclear industry, and the nonproliferation community. The United States stands to gain lucrative contracts to supply fuel and technology to India’s fast-growing nuclear energy sector, and India has pledged not to export enrichment or reprocessing technologies to states without such a capacity. But some have doubts: What if India were not a reliable partner? What if India diverted new technology to weapons R&D, either on the sly or by reneging on the deal? “India may well become another source for illicit nuclear trade,” asserts nonproliferation expert David Albright, president of the Institute for Science and International Security, a think tank in Washington, D.C.

As Burns explained to Congress, “We concluded we had a better chance to have India meet international nonproliferation standards if we engaged rather than isolated it.” He added that he has urged India “to craft a credible and transparent plan.”

Its outlines are now emerging. In December, a delegation to Washington, D.C., led by Indian Foreign Secretary Shyam Saran shared with U.S. officials the first draft of a separation plan. It fell short of U.S. expectations, with several supposedly civilian facilities on the military list, says a U.S. State Department official. The tug of war includes CIRUS, a reactor in Mumbai presumed to have produced plutonium for weapons, a centrifuge hall in Mysore that enriches uranium for naval reactors, analysts claim; and a fast-breeder reactors and a fuel reprocessing plant in Kalpakkam.CIRUS is burdened with Cold War baggage. When India purchased the heavy-water research reactor from Canada in 1956, it pledged to use it only for peaceful purposes. But analysts assert that CIRUS cranked out plutonium for India’s first fission devices, tested in 1974. Despite claims that the devices were for peaceful uses, like overseized sticks of dynamite, the United States assumed the worst and spearheaded a 30-year drive to choke off the flow of nuclear technologies to India. India declared itself a nuclear power after a second round of tests in 1998. Cirus was the sole source of plutonium for India’s stockpile until DRUVA, a larger heavy-water reactor, came on line to augment production in 1985. India’s December opening bid places CIRUS on the military list, excluding it from inspection. But U.S. officials argue that declaring it civilian would dissipate lingering bitterness over India’s failure to keep its “peaceful uses” pledge in the past. If India were to acquiesce and declare CIRUS civilian, it might build an upscale version of DHRUVA or convert a power reactor into a weapons facility, says Rethinaraj. Construction of new military facilities is not prohibited under the U.S. – India deal. Further complicating matters, CIRUS is located in the heart of the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC), much of which, including DHRUVA, is on the military list.

Kalpakkam represents a different kind of headache. The fast-breeder reactors there are testing a blend of uranium and plutonium fuel for civilian power reactors. But the reprocessing facilities that extract plutonium fuel from spent fuel could just as well produce nuclear material for bombs. India’s breeders are meant to be a bridge from current power plants, which draw on India’s dwindling uranium reserves, to future reactors that tap the country’s vast supplies of thorium (Science, 19 August 2004, p.1174).

India has placed its thorium facilities on the military list as well, it says, to protect the intellectual property of its design.)

Some observers hold that the nuclear pact undercuts Kalpakkam economic rationale because India could import uranium, postponing the use of thorium reactors. Kakodkar insisted that India will stick with the development of fast breeders, not only for electricity generation but also because thorium reactors would benefit from design experience. The bottom line, he said, is that India will not submit any of its R&D centers to safeguards, including the Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research in Kalpakkam.

A third flash point is the Rare Materials Project (RMP) in Mysore. At this facility, uranium hexafluoride gas is fed into a centrifuge cascade that boosts the concentration of the fissile isotope uranium-235. Analysts link this enrichment facility to India‘s classified program to develop naval reactors; they point out that it could just as easily churn out bomb grade uranium for weapons. Last month, A.N. Prasada former BARC director, insisted in The Hindu newspaper that the RMP “cannot be discussed, let alone safeguarded.”

Whatever happens to the facilities, some experts argue that by pledging to uphold a moratorium on testing, India has in effect sworn not to refine its nuclear arsenal. “That’s the greatest achievement of the deal”, asserts Rethinaraj. It’s unclear whether the U.S. Congress will buy that if it has qualms over the separation plan. Burns and his team were in New Delhi earlier this week for further negotiations. Engagement with India – or continued isolation – is still on the table.

-Richard Stone

With reporting by Eli Kintisch in Washington, D.C., and Pallava Bagla in New Delhi.