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India Agrees To Ratify IAEA Pact On Nuclear SafetyThe Wall Street Journal, March 31, 2005 |
Volume 4 Issue 41April 2005 |
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NEW DELHI (AP)--India said Thursday it would ratify a worldwide pact that binds nations into maintaining high safety standards at nuclear power plants, but asked other nuclear powers not to block the use of atomic energy for peaceful purposes. India's External Affairs Ministry said New Delhi had decided to ratify the Convention on Nuclear Safety of the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency, the global nuclear watchdog. The convention was adopted in 1994 and entered into force two years later. |
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The convention has now been ratified by approximately 55 countries, owning most of the world's 450-odd nuclear power reactors. The convention makes it legally binding on the signatories to maintain international benchmarks in the construction, operation and regulation of land-based civilian nuclear power plants. It requires the countries to submit regular reports on safety standards. "India has over the past five decades established a multilayered regulatory infrastructure, underpinned by a substantive corpus of long-standing legislation, for ensuring the safety of nuclear installations," the foreign ministry said in a statement. India has six nuclear power plants, with seven more under construction, according to the Web site of the federal Nuclear Power Corporation of India. "Nuclear power, as a safe and secure energy source, is an indispensable component for meeting the development needs of a large and growing economy like India," the statement said. "India hopes that the States Parties to the Convention will...not hinder international cooperation for peaceful purposes and the developmental benefits that accrue from" international cooperation in the field. New Delhi this week also raised the issue of nuclear proliferation, accusing the world's leading nuclear powers of failing to prevent the spread of atomic weapons and demanding that they tighten global nonproliferation rules. External Affairs Minister Natwar Singh said Monday that the leading powers must also agree to "irreversible and verifiable cuts in their nuclear arsenal" if they want to be serious about nonproliferation. India became a nuclear power in 1998. It says it hasn't signed the nonproliferation treaty because the pact seeks to restrict nuclear weapons to a few countries rather than eliminate them completely. Copyright © 2005 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. |
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