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Downer allays concerns

Alexander Downer

SINGAPORE: Australia’s Foreign Minister Alexander Downer on Monday disputed the suggestions that its decision to allow the export of uranium to India would only encourage it to produce more nuclear weapons.

Mr. Downer was responding to the criticism by Hans Blix, formerly a key United Nations weapons inspector, that Canberra’s move would tempt India to divert its own reserves of uranium for military purposes.

Mr. Blix said: “India will get more uranium [from Australia, under this decision], and that uranium will be under [international] safeguards. But it will free up India’s [own] uranium.” As a result, New Delhi could “enrich” such freed-up uranium to the “weapons-level” specifications. “Pakistan and China will worry about that, and you may have a bit of an arms race” in the process.

Mr. Downer said: “I don’t think it frees anything up for anybody. If the argument is ‘we should not export uranium to any country that has nuclear weapons,’ I don’t think that is right. They have had the nuclear weapons anyway, whether we export uranium or not.”

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Downer allays concerns

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