NZ talks may canvass bid to sell Pakistan reactors
Wellington, June 18 NZPA - Many of the biggest players in the global nuclear reactor industry may be headed for a row in New Zealand next week, when the 46-country Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) meets here.
The United States' Obama administration is objecting to China selling nuclear reactors to Pakistan -- which has never signed the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty -- even though the US sealed a similar deal with India two years ago.
New Zealand won international praise then for leading a half-dozen nations -- with support from another 15 -- in refusing to be pressured by the US and India to approve what the New York Times labelled "an ill-conceived nuclear deal". New Zealand's closest supporters in that row were Ireland, Switzerland, Austria, Norway and the Netherlands.
Now United States negotiators at the NSG meeting in New Zealand face a conundrum in trying to oppose the proposed Pakistan deal while dodging charges of hypocrisy, given the administration only last year sealed a US deal to supply India with civilian nuclear equipment, the Christian Science Monitor reported.
The Christchurch meeting coincides with New Zealand marking 40 years of support for the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, according to Disarmament Minister Georgina te Heuheu, who has said the NSG works to ensure vigilance in any trade in goods that could support nuclear weapons programmes.
"It is one of the most effective practical nuclear non-proliferation measures," she said earlier this year.
Mrs te Heuheu is expected to open the conference of experts, but has not announced what stance she and Prime Minister John Key will take over the Chinese attempt to supply reactors to Pakistan, a spokesman told NZPA.
On Thursday New Zealand takes over the six-month chairing of the NSG from Hungary.
Experts at the meeting are expected to clash when the US argues - somewhat uncomfortably, given the US-India deal - that the proposed sale to Pakistan violates the international body's standards, the Christian Science Monitor reported.
"China is expected to counter that what would be a lucrative deal for one of its state-owned companies should be 'grandfathered' because the two reactors are part of a deal that actually predates China's 2004 membership in the NSG, which monitors nuclear transactions," the newspaper reported.
Some nuclear nonproliferation experts have said the US opened the door to deals like China's by pursuing a deal with India that will provide nuclear materials and technology to a country that is a non-signatory of the treaty and thus outside international inspection requirements.
"Two wrongs make a wrong, but it was to be expected once we made the case for an exemption [for the US-India deal]," said Henry Sokolski, executive director of the Nonproliferation Policy Education Centre in Washington.
He said the Chinese might back off in Christchurch to avoid embarrassment, but at some point would successfully make another attempt.
In 2008, the New York Times ran an editorial, "Let's Hear it for New Zealand", after then disarmament and arms control minister Phil Goff and prime minister Helen Clark sounded alarm bells over the US deal with India.
