 |
| Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi |
Australia will begin exporting uranium to India for peaceful purposes, after the two countries' leaders signed an agreement on Thursday that activates a previous deal on uranium exports that had been suspended for years.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi jointly announced the development following a meeting in Melbourne, but the two leaders did not provide specific details on the quantities to be sold or the timeline for when exports would begin.
It should be noted that Australian uranium exports to India had effectively stopped following a preliminary agreement in 2014, due to the same concerns regarding the possibility of diverting the material to military uses. Despite this, Australia possesses the largest known uranium resources in the world, but it does not use any nuclear power and does not possess nuclear weapons; rather, all of its production is exported entirely.
In contrast, India, with a population of about 1.4 billion, is seeking to install 100 gigawatts of nuclear power by 2047, enough to power about 60 million homes annually. However, obtaining uranium has not been easy, as India is not a signatory to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, which has been an obstacle to its importation of the material from signatory countries such as Australia.
However, the Nuclear Suppliers Group granted India a special exemption in 2008 allowing it to purchase uranium from its members, and since then Delhi has sought to conclude bilateral agreements. It concluded a similar agreement with Canada last March, and Australia's position has gradually changed, agreeing to allow exports in 2014, subject to IAEA safeguards and the separation of India's civilian and military nuclear programs. Thursday's administrative agreement was expected to remove the obstacles that had prevented the activation of the previous agreement.
In a related context, Modi and Albanese pledged in their joint statement to enhance defense and security cooperation in the Indo-Pacific region, reflecting a "qualitative shift in the depth and ambition" of the bilateral relationship. This pledge came days after Australia criticized China for launching a ballistic missile from a nuclear-powered submarine in the South Pacific, an area protected by a treaty against nuclear weapons.
