Saturday, 08 May 2010

• Chair of South Pacific Forum Speaks for Islands on Nuclear Non-Proliferation

  The Australian and United States Governments have signed a new 30-year nuclear cooperation agreement that will govern Australia's continuing export of uranium to the world's largest nuclear power.

  Foreign Minister Stephen Smith and US Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Affairs Ellen Tauscher signed a new nuclear safeguards agreement to replace an existing 1979 agreement that expires in January 2011. Mr Smith said the new agreement would extend and refine existing arrangements governing nuclear cooperation between Australia and the US, including application of non-proliferation safeguards, security of nuclear material and technical cooperation. The agreement would also allow for the protection of intellectual property in connection with nuclear cooperation. Australia sells about 36 per cent of its $1 billion in uranium exports to the US. The US is also a major processor of Australian uranium sold to other countries.The new safeguards agreement is for an initial period of 30 years, with the option to be extended further.

  Mr Smith has been in New York to attend the opening sessions of the 2010 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty review conference which is intended to strengthen nuclear safeguards and encourage nuclear disarmament. Mr Smith described the previous 2005 review conference as ''a debacle'', but said there were more positive signs leading up to this year's meeting. Mr Smith also said there was a ''growing view'' among countries represented at the conference that the UN Security Council would have to revisit the question of Iran's nuclear program, including the imposition on Iran of new international sanctions. He reiterated the Australian Government's preparedness to impose further unilateral sanctions if Iran did not change its nuclear policy.

  Mr Smith also addressed an International Commission on Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament event, during which the commission co-chairs, former Australian foreign minister Professor Gareth Evans and former Japanese foreign minister Yoriko Kawaguchi, presented their independent report to the review conference. Mr Smith welcomed the commission's ''significant and practical contribution'' to efforts to strengthen the global nuclear non-proliferation regime, but in a four-page press statement provided only limited support for the commission's recommendations for a staged movement towards a world free of nuclear weapons.

  Coalition foreign affairs spokeswoman Julie Bishop described Mr Smith's statement as a ''shallow and patronising'' response that was ''full of platitudes''. Ms Bishop said that the commission had been established by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and had cost taxpayers about $9 million, but the Government's response was ''a damp squib''.

  As the current chair of the Pacific Islands Forum, Mr Smith also welcomed an announcement by US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton that the US Government intended to ratify the protocols of the Treaty of Rarotonga which established the South Pacific Nuclear Weapons Free Zone in 1985.

  
  

  Canberra Times 05-06-10 per Philip Dorling National Affairs Correspondent

  
  

  • 4:30 PM
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