Pakistan raises worries over India’s uranium agreement with Canada

Pakistan on Thursday expressed concern over a uranium supply agreement between India and Canada, warning that the deal could have serious implications for regional strategic stability and the global non-proliferation regime.

The prime ministers of India and Canada met in New Delhi, and this led to several new agreements between the two countries, such as a 10-year nuclear deal, among others, which had deteriorated due to diplomatic tensions between the two countries. The two nations had also settled on a deal involving the supply of uranium that is 1.9 billion dollars and had assured collaboration in the area of small modular reactors and cutting-edge technologies in nuclear science.

In reaction to the announcement, the spokesperson of the Foreign Office of Pakistan, Tahir Andrabi, claimed that it was especially ironical that Canada now was providing preferential access to India in nuclear terms. He explained that India had conducted its 1974 nuclear test with a Canadian-supplied reactor, which was intended to be used peacefully, and this saw the inception of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG).

Andrabi emphasized that India has failed to put its entire civilian nuclear installation under the protection of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and has not undertaken any form of commitment to place its civilian nuclear installations under this arrangement. There are a number of sites that the international inspections do not include, and no one knows what the concrete non-proliferation guarantees the deal will involve.

By promising steady sources of foreign uranium, he cautioned that even domestic sources of uranium in India would be free to be used in the military and enable India to build larger stockpiles of fission material, increase its nuclear arsenal more rapidly, and create an additional lopsidedness in South Asia.