Don’t Bomb Iran

Australia’s Foreign minister Downer wants to sell uranium to India, although India is not a signatory of the Non Proliferation Treaty and refuses to put some of its reactors under the IAEA safeguards regime. In 1996 Downer told parliament that such a sale is forbidden by the 1985 South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone treaty

UPDATE: the next Australian government promised before election NOT to sell uranium to India, and initially kept its promise; but by April 2008 it became (perhaps the first?) election commitment that Rudd abandoned after election, under pressure from Washington at the Nuclear Suppliers Group.   If Rudd had stuck to his promise, Australia’s no vote at the NSG would have vetoed the whole American ‘123′ deal that legalised India’s bomb, undermined the NPT, and will bring billions of dollars of trade to the US nuclear industry.

UPDATE: this issue has also been covered  in more detail here by the Centre for Non-Proliferation Studies

On 10 September 1996 in response to a question on Taiwan, Downer said:

Article 4 (a) of the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone Treaty imposes a legal obligation not to provide nuclear material unless subject to the safeguards required by Article III.1 of the NPT; that is fullscope safeguards.

Similarly on August 27 2001, Bill Patterson, first assistant secretary at DFAT told Parliament’s Standing Committee on Treaties

As a party to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons and the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone Treaty, SPNFZ, Australia is obliged to supply nuclear material only to states in which full-scope IAEA safeguards apply.

(The list of government officials and international lawyers present at the 2001 Treaty Committee is found here maybe someone should ask their opinion)

As recently as April 2006 Downer downplayed suggestions that uranium could be exported to India, unlike Taiwan because:

“Taiwan did originally sign the NPT and all of its nuclear facilities are subject to IAEA inspections. Now neither of those things are true for India,” he said.