The UN nuclear watchdog will insist on inspecting Australia’s future nuclear submarines before and after deployments as part of a “watertight” agreement to ensure no fissile material is diverted, the agency’s chief has said.
Rafael Mariano Grossi, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), said the agency and the partners in the Aukus nuclear sharing agreement – the US, UK and Australia – will hold further negotiations on how to make sure it does not conflict with their non-proliferation obligations.
The Aukus deal exploits a loophole in the 1968 Nuclear Non Proliferation treaty that allows nuclear fuel used for non-explosive military uses like naval propulsion to be exempted from IAEA inspections.
As one of the ways of limiting the possibility that fissile material could be diverted to making weapons, nuclear fuel will be delivered to Australia in welded power units which would be installed in submarines to be assembled by Australia and ready by the 2040s.
Grossi said that in negotiations with Australia, the IAEA would insist that its inspectors would be allowed to check the amount of nuclear fuel in the sealed units before and after the submarines put out to sea.
“We have to check before it goes in the water, and when it comes back,” Grossi told reporters in Washington on Wednesday. “This requires highly sophisticated technical methods, because there will be welded units, [but] our inspectors will want to know what is inside and whether, when the boat comes back to port, everything is there and there has not been any loss. It’s the first time something like this will be done.”
“We are going to be very demanding on what they are planning to do. So the process starts now. And the proof of the pudding is in the tasting,” Grossi said.
Grossi is due to report on progress on the non-proliferation agreements related to the Aukus deal to the member states on the IAEA’s board in June.
“We are going to put together a solid watertight system to try to have all the guarantees. If we cannot do that, we would never agree,” Grossi said.
Arms control advocates have generally welcomed the precautionary measures adopted by the Aukus partners, but have expressed concern that the precedent it sets could encourage other states to use the NPT loophole potentially to use the pretext of developing nuclear naval propulsion as a way of hiding work on weapons.
“If it was the case that country X wants to do this, they will have to do the exact same thing if they want to stay within the law,” Grossi said. “They will have to come to us. They will have to inform us what they are planning to do, and they will have to open a process of consultation and negotiation.”
China has strenuously objected to the deal and its foreign ministry has alleged that the Aukus partners had “coerced” the IAEA into accepting it.
“Countries have strong feelings about it,” Grossi said, but he added: “Nobody coerces me. Nobody coerces the IAEA.”
