PNN: Pakistan has expressed concern over the long-term uranium supply agreement between Canada and India and potential cooperation on small modular reactors and advanced reactor technologies between the two sides, state broadcaster Radio Pakistan reported.
In response to media queries, Spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Tahir Andrabi, said Pakistan reiterates that “civil nuclear cooperation must be governed by a non-discriminatory, criteria-based approach applicable equally to states that are not parties to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.”
The spokesperson said selective exceptions diminish the credibility of the global non-proliferation framework and risk further destabilising regional and global peace & security.
He said this arrangement represents yet another country-specific exception in the field of civil nuclear cooperation, and that it is “particularly ironic given that India’s 1974 nuclear test, conducted using plutonium produced in a reactor supplied by Canada for peaceful purposes, had led directly to the establishment of the Nuclear Suppliers Group.”
“A state whose actions necessitated the establishment of global export controls is now being granted preferential access under selective arrangements,” he said.
Tahir Andrabi said India has neither placed all its civilian nuclear facilities under International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards nor undertaken any binding commitment to do so under this arrangement. Several facilities remain outside international inspection. It is also unclear what concrete non-proliferation assurances, if any, accompany this agreement.
He said the strategic consequences are equally troubling, as “Assured external uranium supplies effectively release India’s domestic reserves for military use, enabling the expansion of its fissile material stockpiles, accelerating the growth of its nuclear arsenal, and deepening existing asymmetries in South Asia’s strategic balance.” He added that given this context, the arrangement also undermines Canada’s commitment to the international non-proliferation regime and its corresponding obligations under that framework.
India and Canada deal
India and Canada on Monday reached a string of agreements, including on critical mineral cooperation and a “landmark” uranium supply deal for nuclear power, the countries’ leaders said in New Delhi.
The pacts, which also covered technology and promoting the use of renewable energy, were announced after Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Canadian counterpart Mark Carney hailed a fresh start in the relationship between their nations.
“Our ties have seen a new energy, mutual trust, and positivity,” Modi said.
Carney’s visit is a key step forward in ties that effectively collapsed in 2023 after Ottawa accused New Delhi of orchestrating a deadly campaign against Sikh activists in Canada, accusations India rejected.
“There has been more engagement between the Canadian and Indian governments in the last year than there has been in more than two decades combined,” Carney said in New Delhi, in a speech alongside Modi.