NEW DELHI: The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), apparently seeking to pressure India into opening all its nuclear plants to inspection, said on Saturday a new deal was needed to supply fuel to one of them.

IAEA Director General Hans Blix was quoted by United News of India as telling a news conference in Bombay that India would need to negotiate a fresh deal with the U.S, and the IAEA for fuel supplies to the Tarapur nuclear reactor, near Bombay, Blix said New Delhi’s existing agreement with Washington, due to expire on October 24, would be extended until the end of the year as an “interim measure,”

The IAEA chief, on a brief stopover en route to South Korea, was quoted as saying that a “tripartite agreement had to be renegotiated” shortly.

Tarapur, India’s oldest atomic power station has run on French supplied uranium since 1983, when the United States asked France to take over shipments under a 30year agreement signed with Washington.

France said in July this year that it had stopped supplying nuclear fuel to Tarapur until India allowed a lull inspection of all nuclear installations by the TABA. ‘The head of India’s Atomic Energy Commission, R.

Chidambaram said Tarapur still had enough fuel to keep running for a further year.

New Delhi has long resisted U.S. pressure to sign the “Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT ) and has allowed IAEA inspection m only two of its four nuclear power stations, in Tarapur and the northwestern state of Rajasthan.

Under the NPT, all India’s nuclear cities would have to open up to international monitoring.

India says the treaty, which aims to control the spread of nuclear knowhow, favors countries which possess nuclear arms while discriminating against others.

Western nations fear that without international supervision India could divert fuel for power generation into military use in a nuclear arms race with its neigh= bor, Pakistan:

India exploded a nuclear device in 1974 and diplomats say it is close to assembling a bomb. Pakistan is also believed to have nuclear capability, prompting the U.S. to halt military aid in 1990.

Article extracted from this publication >>  November 12, 1993