Lee Seeks to Keep India Nuke Deal from Weakening Non-Proliferation Efforts
(Washington, DC) – Concerned that a proposed deal to share civilian nuclear technology with India will undermine international nonproliferation efforts, Congresswoman Barbara Lee (D-Oakland) offered an amendment today that would require India to join the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) as a precondition to receiving nuclear assistance from the U.S.
“What we do here today will have broad-ranging implications on our efforts to hold Iran and North Korea to international standards,” said Lee. “I believe that any cooperative agreement must not sacrifice decades of nuclear nonproliferation work by the United States and nonproliferation activists around the world.”
Lee’s amendment, offered during a markup of the deal by the House International Relations Committee, would add an eighth item to the list of determinations that the President must make before the agreement can proceed, namely, the determination that India has ratified the Non-Proliferation Treaty. It was defeated on a vote of 4-36, with two Republicans, Chris Smith of New Jersey and Jim Leach of Iowa voting for the amendment.
“Some may question whether it is realistic for us to press India to join the NPT, given that it already has nuclear weapons,” said Lee. “I would turn that around and ask what incentive India will have now to join in—as the President has put it—the ‘nonproliferation mainstream’ when it can secure valuable agreements like the one we’re currently debating when it is outside the mainstream?”
Under the conditions of the proposed deal, India would open civilian nuclear facilities to international inspections, but their military nuclear facilities would remain closed. Critics of the deal believe that reversing decades of U.S. policy and tacitly allowing India’s military nuclear programs to proceed without international oversight will severely undermine the global nuclear non-proliferation regime.
Saturday, July 1st, marks the 38th anniversary of the NPT.
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