OSLO, Nov 3, Reuter: Norway said on Thursday it had asked India to help trace a cargo of heavy water, which can be used to make atomic bombs, that was illegally rerouted to Bombay and then possibly to another country.

Foreign Minister Thorvald StoItenberg told state radio that the appeal had been made to India’s Ambassador to Oslo on Wednesday; He said Norway’s credibility had been damaged by a spate of recent scandals over its heavy water exports.

“Bombay could have been used as a transit point and that is why we need to cooperate,” he said.

Norway said earlier this week that 15 tons of heavy water, which can be used in making plutonium, had been rerouted from Basle in Switzerland in defiance of international regulations. Several tons of Soviet water were also on the plane, it said, “I cannot say with certainty that we will not discover more breaches of Norwegian conditions of sale for the water,” Stoltenberg said.

Norway insists that the heavy water, also known as deuterium oxide, be used only for peaceful purposes, but has extorted it to 35 countries since it became a leading producer in the 1950’s.

These include several, like South Africa, that have refused to sign the nuclear nonproliferation treaty aimed at stopping the spread of nuclear weapons. India has also refused and it is illegal to supply it with more than one town of heavy water.

“When things turn out this way, our name comes up in any discussion of the guilty. It is a bur den,” Stoltenberg said. He has previously said that only very small amounts of heavy water will now be approved for export.

“We have three serious cases now… which have proved unfortunate for the credibility of our country.”

Stoltenberg was referring to a dispute with Israel over water bought in a secret sale in 1959 and a Norwegian probe into the use Romania has made of water it bought in 1986.

Israel refused a Norwegian demand in 1986 to inspect 20 tons of heavy water, after Media reports that it had been used to produce atomic weapons.

Israel refuses to confirm or deny that it has such weapons.

India has denied that it imported the water or that it possesses nuclear weapons.

The water was sold to a West German firm, Dusseldorf-based Rohst-off-Einfuhr GMBH, by Norwegian industrial giant Norsk Hydro A/S in December 1983. Rohst-off-Einfubr is an importer and distributor of materials for scientific research.

Article extracted from this publication >> November 11, 1988