VIENNA, Austria (AP) -India and the International Atomic Energy Agency have agreed to start talks meant to give the U.N. watchdog an overview of much of New Delhi's civilian nuclear program, the agency said Wednesday.
The decision moves India closer to finalizing a controversial nuclear cooperation deal with the United States.
An IAEA statement said Indian Department of Atomic Energy Chairman Anil Kakodkar and IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei agreed to ``initiate consultations on an India-specific safeguards agreement,'' with the two sides hold their first technical meeting later this week.
Washington has hailed the agreement as cornerstone of a new partnership between emerging power India and the United States, and India's government depicts it as crucial to still the country's growing energy needs and bring it into the nuclear mainstream after decades of outsider status.
But critics say it undermines the Nuclear Nonproliferation Agreement by rewarding a nation that circumvented it to develop a nuclear weapons program at a time when Washington is trying to rein in Iran's nuclear ambitions out of fears it, too, seeks nuclear technology to build weapons.
They argue that any ``India-specific'' safeguards could allow New Delhi to place restrictions on the number of civilian reactors open to inspection, while leaving others free from IAEA oversight - and freeing them up to produce uranium for India's weapons program.
Before the deal is signed, it still has to be approved by the Nuclear Suppliers Group, a group of nations that export nuclear material. Some countries in that group remain opposed to any agreement with India that would circumvent NSG rules calling for full-scope safeguards on all nuclear facilities of all countries except the United States, Russia, China, Britain and France - the formally declared nuclear weapons states - as a condition of doing business.
It also must face another review by U.S. lawmakers, some of whom fear the extra fuel the measure provides could boost India's nuclear bomb stockpile. That, they worry, could spark a nuclear arms race in Asia, where neighboring Pakistan and China also already have nuclear weapons.
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