On March 2, 2006, President George W. Bush and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh announced an historic agreement on civilian nuclear trade. The agreement, the centerpiece of the Bush Administration’s effort to expand and deepen ties with India, would end a nearly 30-year embargo on U.S. civilian nuclear cooperation with that country. In return, India, which is not a party to the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), and which announced its possession of nuclear weapons following a series of nuclear tests in 1998, agreed to implement a number of measures supportive of international efforts to curb the proliferation of nuclear arms. Among other measures, India agreed to separate its civilian and military nuclear facilities and to place the former under the inspection system of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Importantly, the United States sees the agreement as a means for adding India to the list of states actively opposing the spread of nuclear weapons to additional countries.

In 1992, the 45-member Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) adopted a ban on all nuclear trade with states, like India, that are not defined as Nuclear Weapon States under the NPT and that have not placed all of their nuclear facilities under IAEA inspection. Thus, as a member of the group, if it wishes to open civil nuclear trade with India, the United States must obtain the support of the Group’s members to exempt India from the 1992 embargo rule. Historically the NSG has operated by consensus.  Thus, in principle, any member of the group could block the new U.S. proposal. Critics of the U.S.-India agreement argue that softening the NSG guidelines for India will weaken the international regime aimed at curbing the spread of nuclear arms and that these negative impacts outweigh the benefits from the nonproliferation commitments India has accepted as part of the deal. Proponents of the deal, however, point out that India is now committed to a number of nonproliferation obligations to which it was not previously bound, including its agreement to place the majority of its nuclear power facilities under IAEA inspection. Moreover, as the IAEA considered the important question of whether to refer Iran to the UN Security Council because of its past violations of IAEA inspection rules, India, which in the past would have remained on the sidelines, supported taking strong measures against Tehran, demonstrating its new activism on nonproliferation matters.

Given the implications of the U.S.-India agreement for the international nonproliferation regime, for international security more broadly, and for state relations with Washington, the U.S. initiative presents many states with a difficult dilemma, in particular those that are NSG members, or have otherwise played significant roles in building and reinforcing the nonproliferation regime. While circumstances differ, most nations in these categories have important competing interests to weigh as they decide whether to endorse or oppose the opening of civil nuclear trade with India. For this reason, many states have refrained from adopting a firm position on the matter, although the media in many nations has been more outspoken.

Russia, UK, France – Official Approval and Commercial Interests
A liberalization of NSG rules for New Delhi would permit all major nuclear supplier countries, in particular suppliers of uranium and/or of nuclear power reactors, to trade with India, which is planning a major expansion of its nuclear power industry.  Canada, France, Russia, and the United Kingdom, – all NSG members – might hope for significant nuclear sales to India, giving them an economic incentive to support a liberalization of nuclear trading rules with New Delhi. (India has agreed that all imported facilities would be placed on the list of IAEA-inspected facilities.)  France, Russia, and the UK in fact have also been strongly supportive of the U.S.-India agreement. 

Russia
Russia’s ambassador to India, Vyacheslav Trubnikov, openly welcomed the agreement, saying that Russia had long supported the removal of limits on civil nuclear cooperation with New Delhi and had also supported the separation of the defense and civilian components of the Indian nuclear program to make cooperation easier. He expressed the hope that the U.S.-Indian agreement would help achieve progress in this area and eventually help to increase the sale of Russian reactors and fuel to India. [1] Russia is currently constructing two nuclear power plants in that country and has sought additional sales, only to be stymied by the NSG embargo. Indeed, anticipating that the change in U.S. policy towards India will lead to a repeal of the NSG rule against nuclear trade with New Delhi, Russia has offered to provide fuel for India’s Tarapur reactors, even before the NSG acts to alter its rules – and before the U.S. Congress amends U.S. law to allow U.S. nuclear sales to India. An expert at the Security and Disarmament Department of the Russian Foreign Ministry, A. Shishlin, highlighted Russia’s readiness to expand nuclear trade with India, declaring that Russia was prepared to study U.S.-proposed amendments to the NSG guidelines and looked toward early progress in the relevant negotiations. [2]

Commentary in the Russian media has focused on three somewhat contradictory points. First, analysts complain that the Bush Administration sacrificed nonproliferation to a strategic alliance with India against China, a development that strengthens the United States globally and is not to Russia’s advantage. [3] Second, and more positively, a number of commentators have stressed that the agreement will open doors for large-scale nuclear cooperation between Russia and India, once the NSG guidelines are relaxed. India is expected to conclude significant new contracts for fresh nuclear fuel and, importantly, for new nuclear power stations to be constructed by Russian companies – the only foreign organizations currently building such facilities in India. [4] In addition, at least one of these observers has expressed concern that Russian suppliers will have to face tough competition from American companies, diminishing the prospects for significant economic gains, as the United States seeks to monopolize the Indian market. [5]

The United Kingdom
The United Kingdom is a country of unquestionable commitment to strong nonproliferation measures. A staunch ally of the United States in opposing the perceived WMD threat from Iraq during Operation Iraqi Freedom and, more recently, in pressuring Iran to constrain its nuclear activities, the UK has expressed strong support for the U.S.-India agreement and stated its intention to work with the United States and the NSG to allow civil nuclear trade with New Delhi. According to a government press release, Prime Minister Blair responded to the deal by stating, “I believe that the deal can make a significant contribution to energy security, development, economic and environmental objectives for India and the international community, as well as represent a net gain for the non-proliferation regime.” [6]

British media commentary on the deal appears to be more multifaceted. One columnist captured the complexity of the situation. Calling the deal outrageous, he declared that, “It blows a hole in the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, just as the world is trying to deter Iran from its nuclear aims.” [7] However, the author then goes on to argue that, “The deal answers one of the biggest problems of the NPT: what should be done about countries that already have the bomb, but [like India] have never signed the treaty?” Suggesting that India’s importance will have to be addressed in some way, the author asserts that the deal identifies the possible incentives for countries “prepared to engage with the West.”

France
Like Russia, the official French reaction to the U.S.-India agreement on nuclear cooperation has not only been receptive, but France has also used the proposed changes in the rules governing nuclear transfers to India as an opportunity to conclude its own arrangements with India in the nuclear field. In late February 2006, just prior to President Bush’s visit to South Asia, French President Jacques Chirac met with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to conclude a number of far-reaching agreements, including one for the provision of nuclear reactors and fuel to India. Echoing sentiments similar to those expressed by President Bush during the initial announcement of the U.S.-India deal on July 18, 2005, President Chirac stated that, “India’s access to civilian-nuclear technology... is indeed necessary in order to drive and fuel India’s economic development.” [8] [9] The details of the French-India nuclear agreement, which were deferred until the nuclear facility separation plan was finalized between the United States and India, if determined, have not been disclosed. (France is not known to have expressed concern that one facility on the Indian military list, the Fast Breeder Test Reactor, is built with technology provided by France in the early 1970s.)

While the U.S.-India deal has received a positive response from the French government, commentary in the French press has been critical of the nonproliferation implications of the agreement. One editorial in the March 4, 2006, issue of Le Monde argued that the discrepancy in the U.S. approaches to India and Iran opens the United States to charges of applying “dual standards.” [10] The paper went on to assert that this difference “highlights a belief long held by some U.S. strategists: the danger of nuclear weapons is not technological, but political; it depends on the nature of the regimes that possess them.” Another columnist writing in Libération on March 23, 2006, criticized the deal from a slightly different perspective, arguing that the agreement may result in the increased proliferation of nuclear weapons, because “…the fact remains that the U.S. initiative – which presupposes India’s long-term political stability and the settlement of the still explosive issue of Kashmir – could spark a military nuclear race, particularly in Asia.” [11] The author noted, for example, that Pakistan “will inevitably” seek a similar agreement from China to the one India has signed with the United States.

Canada – Difficult Choices Ahead
While Canada has not given the U.S-India deal the clear endorsement that the agreement has received from Russia, the UK, and France, it has agreed to resume civilian nuclear cooperation with India for “dual-use” nuclear goods, in spite of some concerns. (Such sales are permitted by the NSG nuclear export guidelines, which explicitly ban only sales of items especially designed and prepared for civilian or military nuclear uses.) Canada’s nuclear cooperation history with India gives it a particular stake in the outcome of the agreement and the approval of changes to the NSG rules. In 1956, Canada provided India with a reactor (known as the CIRUS reactor) which is widely believed to have been used to produce the plutonium used in India’s 1974 nuclear test. Canada asserts that such use of its reactor was in violation of a pledge made by India to use the unit only for peaceful purposes. India claims that it did not violate this pledge, because the 1974 detonation was a “peaceful nuclear explosion” of the kind that the United States and the Soviet Union were exploring at the time. Because of the episode, Canada ended all nuclear commerce with India in 1976.

Demonstrating Canada’s continued concern regarding the role of the CIRUS unit in India’s nuclear activities, a Canadian official suggested during a December 19, 2005, forum on CIRUS in Washington, DC, that the U.S.-India initiative provided “an excellent opportunity” to address the role of the Canadian-supplied reactor. [12] Expressing Canada’s position on the matter, the official stated that, “…we have encouraged India and the U.S. to place the CIRUS under IAEA safeguards. This would respect the peaceful uses assurance of our original agreement.” In spite of this stance, however, Canada indicated in late January 2006 that, even if CIRUS were not placed on India’s list of civilian, IAEA-inspected facilities, Canada would still be prepared to support changing the NSG rules to allow nuclear trade with India, if it determined the U.S.-India agreement to be a “net gain” for the nonproliferation regime. According to India’s separation plan, announced March 7, 2006, CIRUS will not be placed under IAEA safeguards but will be shut down in 2010. Canada has yet to make any public declarations as to its net assessment of the agreement in light of the separation plan, which also states that six reactors based on the design of the Canadian-supplied Rajasthan nuclear power plants are to be placed on India’s military list. (See article on India’s breeder program in this issue of WMD Insights.)

Canada’s change in position to allow nuclear cooperation with India in dual-use goods has received mixed reviews from former senior members of Canada’s Foreign Ministry. Reid Morden, a former Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, noted that previous attempts had been made to reestablish nuclear relations between Canada and India, stating that, “I think they finally decided that for good and sufficient self-interest we should do this.” [13] Former Canadian Foreign Minister Lloyd Axworthy, one of the individuals credited with Canada’s strong stand against nuclear cooperation with India, harshly criticized Canada’s decision, arguing that, “Here you have a country like Canada, which for decades was really a strong voice for restraining proliferation and, in fact, trying to improve it, basically giving up.” [14]

On balance, response to the deal in the Canadian media tended to echo the sentiment of Mr. Axworthy. An editorial in the March 7, 2006, issue of The Toronto Star derided the deal as undermining nuclear arms control and posing a threat to global security. The paper argued that, instead of such bilateral deals, the nuclear powers, including advanced nuclear-capable states such as Canada, “should sell nuclear technology only to nations agreeing not to develop nuclear weapons,” positing that such policies have “served as a brake on the spread of nuclear weaponry.” [15] Haroon Siddiqui, editor emeritus of The Toronto Star, took a similar position, arguing that the deal will hinder U.S. efforts to engage Iran and stating that Iran’s cheating “has been miniscule compared to Israel’s, India’s and Pakistan’s,” all of which developed nuclear weapons outside the NPT. [16]

Pakistan – Growing Disgruntlement
In the months following the July 18, 2005, announcement of the basic outline of the U.S.-India agreement, Pakistan reacted relatively calmly in its official pronouncements, seemingly resigned to the fact that it was not going to receive comparable treatment from Washington to that enjoyed by India. While a brief flurry of rumors suggested, erroneously, that Islamabad was going to sign a major nuclear reactor purchase agreement with China, in fact, Pakistan seemed to carry its burden rather stoically, even through the March 4-5, 2006, visit of President Bush to Islamabad only days after the U.S.-India pact was finalized. [17] Behind the scenes, Pakistan had expressed the hope that it will be able to graduate to the same status as India over time, a theme the Musharraf government also pursued during the Bush visit. [18] Nonetheless, some Pakistani observers believed from the outset that the U.S.-India agreement would cast a long shadow and adversely affect a wide range of Pakistani interests, including confidence-building talks with India over Kashmir. [19]

The Bush visit to the region appeared to intensify distress over the new U.S.-India relationship. An editorial, just prior to the visit, in the Urdu-language Islamabad Khabrain, declared, for example, that it was probable that anti-U.S. feelings would increase if Pakistan were ignored. [20] Similarly, the day after the March 2 agreement was announced, Mushahid Hussain Syed, chairman for the Senate standing committee on foreign affairs, called for giving equal status to Pakistan and India with regard to nuclear cooperation. [21] Seeking a balance to the new U.S.-India entente, roughly a week after President Bush visited Islamabad, Pakistani Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz vowed to deepen bilateral cooperation in all aspects with Beijing. [22] One major daily complained that Pakistan must be accorded the same benefits as India if NSG rules are changed, and chastened the United States for failing to recognize that the deal could disturb the balance of power in the region. Indeed, it argued that the United States was reverting to its old approach of playing one power against the other and destabilizing the region in the process. [23] Pakistani media also noted that the failure to offer Pakistan a deal similar to that offered to India was likely to be seen as evidence of Washington’s bias against Islamic states acquiring nuclear technology, a step likely to increase divisions between the West and Islamic countries. [24] An embittered editorial in the nationalistic Nawa-I-Waqt called for an end to Pakistan’s reliance on the United States, declaring, “We say the only way to steer out from the difficulty faced by Pakistan is that it should say good-bye to the so-called U.S. friendship and free itself from U.S. slavery.” [25]

One particularly strident comment was offered by Pakistani Foreign Minister Khurshid Kasuri in a March 16, 2005, interview, where he asserted, “We demand equality of treatment and we’ll continue to pursue it.” He went on to say, that “once this [the U.S.-India agreement] goes through, the NPT is finished” and that the Pakistani public sees the initiative as one more indication that the United States has not been “a constant friend the way China has.” [26]

It will be important to see whether this sudden change of tone was an isolated incident or reflects a major shift in official Pakistani attitudes that could strain relations with the United States, at a time when Washington is seeking Pakistani cooperation in rolling up the A.Q. Khan nuclear smuggling network and in avoiding confrontations with India.

The new assertiveness on the part of some Pakistani officials may be an attempt to deflect the impression, implicit in many Pakistani press
accounts, that President Musharraf has been ineffectual in pressing Pakistan’s case with Washington for the opening of civil nuclear cooperation.

Regional Powers Show Caution, While Media Critiques Agreement
Several important regional states that are NSG members and that traditionally have been vocal on strengthening international nonproliferation rules, including The Republic of Korea (ROK), Brazil, and South Africa, have shown caution in expressing any official reaction to the agreement. While the media commentary in these states is largely critical of the deal, the official pronouncements have been more guarded, undoubtedly reflecting the need for the governments involved to weigh a range of interests, including their relations with the United States and India, as they assess the nonproliferation implications of ending the NSG nuclear trade embargo against New Delhi.

South Korea
The ROK government officially has not reacted to the proposed U.S.-India nuclear deal, but Seoul, which is relying on the application of international nonproliferation norms to constrain the North Korean nuclear program, may be uncomfortable with an agreement that appears to weaken a long-standing element of the nonproliferation regime. Open opposition to the arrangement, however, could add to a series of issues that have recently strained Seoul’s alliance with Washington at a time when the Roh Moo-hyun government is seeking to maintain strong bilateral security and economic ties. Furthermore, the ROK government does not want to alienate India. The two countries held talks on a free trade agreement March 23-24, 2006. The talks are the result of a Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement between the two states that was signed when Indian President Abdul Kalam visited Seoul in February 2006. [27]

While the ROK government has eschewed public statements on the U.S.-India nuclear pact, the South Korean press has been vocally opposed to the deal. The press has largely based its criticism on the following concerns:

(a) the agreement represents a U.S. double standard;

(b) it is part of a larger U.S. global strategy to ally with India and contain China at the cost of strict nonproliferation rules;

(c) rewarding India will make it more difficult to persuade North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons program;

(d) it will undermine the NPT by giving India the same access to civil nuclear cooperation as enjoyed by states, like South Korea, that have joined the treaty and renounced nuclear arms;

(e) it represents U.S. opportunism and an effort to secure a growing market for American nuclear energy firms; and

(f) it could invite China to cut a similar deal with Pakistan and thus help trigger an arms race in Asia. [28]

Brazil and South Africa have played significant roles in championing the NPT, as part of the New Agenda Coalition (NAC), promoting the treaty especially as a means for achieving global nuclear disarmament. Both countries joined the NPT after years of opposing the pact. Brazil did so after it abandoned an incipient nuclear weapons program that it pursued through the mid-1980s; South Africa took this step after it decided, in 1991, to eliminate its small nuclear arsenal. One incentive for both states to join the NPT was the fact that this step would make them eligible for civilian nuclear cooperation from members of the NSG – a group that both states have since joined and of which Brazil, at the moment, chairs.

Under the U.S.-India agreement, India would now enjoy the same access to civil nuclear cooperation as Brazil and South Africa, but without renouncing nuclear weapons, as these states were required to do to obtain this privilege. This history might be expected to lead the two states to oppose the U.S.-India accord within the NSG, but they have not openly done so. Among other competing concerns, the two countries have been building political ties with India in recent years as an informal leadership grouping within the developing world, known as the G3.

Commentary in the Brazilian press has been more direct. Some analysts in the media have been critical of the deal as being harmful to the nuclear nonproliferation regime, especially the NPT. According to one Brazilian columnist writing on March 3 in the Folha de Sao Paulo, the U.S.-India agreement “represents yet another fissure in the already problematic NPT,” adding that the United States is, “in some way, rewarding India for never signing the NPT.” [30] The notion that the NPT is already fraught with divisions and challenges suggests, however, that the agreement only added to existing frustrations with the regime, but did not create a new source of dissatisfaction. A second columnist writing for the same paper on March 13 invoked a theme seen in press commentaries in other countries, citing a U.S. double standard in its policies vis-à-vis India and Iran. [31]

In contrast to these two commentaries, an earlier article in the Folha de Sao Paulo, written in August 2005, shortly after the announcement of the deal, does not make any reference to the NPT, but rather focuses on the agreement’s strategic implications. While suggesting that the deal essentially recognizes India as a member of the “nuclear club,” author Demetrio Magnoli observes that the agreement is part of a broader U.S. policy of strengthening relations with India. “Above all,” Magnoli argued, “the strategic India-U.S. partnership cements the foundations of an Asia policy aimed at counterbalancing China’s power.” [32] Magnoli then related this attempt to counterbalance China with the U.S. position on UN Security Council reform, where the U.S. has been ready to consider adding Japan as a new permanent member to the body (but without the right of veto), which he also views as an effort to limit China’s power. Brazil, which desires a permanent seat on the UN Security Council, is likely to be highly attuned to any apparent interactions among the Council’s permanent five members that might support an increase in the number of permanent Council members.

There has been little commentary on the deal in the South African press. The few analyses that have appeared, however, echo the views of critics elsewhere, with some variations. According to one South African columnist, the agreement “demonstrates the truth about nuclear programs,” explaining that, “the haves will shout and scream about you developing nuclear weapons, but once you have them the world quickly adjusts to this new balance, and the haves have no choice but to welcome you into the club.” [33] While such a viewpoint is somewhat anomalous, coming from a state that agreed to dismantle its nuclear weapons and nuclear weapons program in the 1990s, it appears to reflect a frustration with the nuclear nonproliferation regime, which is consistent with official South African statements urging greater progress on nuclear disarmament.

Egypt, also a vocal member of the NAC (though not an NSG member), has focused traditionally on the lack of universality of the NPT, especially in the Middle East – a euphemism for its concerns that Israel remains outside the pact and continues to possess a nuclear weapons capability. Given its attention to Israel’s nuclear potential, Cairo is likely to be wary of any policy changes that appear to legitimize the possession of nuclear arms by a non-NPT state. Not surprisingly, therefore, the agreement between Washington and New Delhi received negative press in the Egyptian media.

The most prevalent criticism in the media, common to many critics of the nuclear deal, is that it embodies an American “double standard” with regard to India’s and Iran’s nuclear programs, repsectively. As stated by al-Ahram, Egypt’s official and most widely read newspaper, “The United States-India nuclear energy deal . . . undermines the U.S. moral position against the Iranian nuclear program and takes the notorious U.S. double standards towards the Arab and Islamic world to new heights…. This U.S. generosity has its motives, but it clearly contradicts the country’s near hysterical opposition to Iran’s nuclear program.” [34] A second article in al-Ahram claimed that the United States is bolstering India’s power in the region to counter China, as well as to increase the world market for nuclear reactors, thus using the deal to serve Washington’s interests. [35] An additional criticism is that, under this agreement, India will be allowed to choose which of its nuclear reactors will be placed under IAEA safeguards, allowing several to be designated as military facilities. This is seen as enhancing nuclear proliferation by permitting the further production of nuclear weapons. [36]

The desire to build India as a balance to China’s growing power is seen by many to be one of the key reasons behind increasing U.S. cooperation with India, including in the nuclear sector. As a result, the nuclear agreement between Washington and New Delhi raises strategic considerations for Beijing. As a member of the NSG, China’s views will be of great importance when the United States seeks to modify the group’s guidelines to permit nuclear commerce with India. Many observers expect that China will seek a similar exemption for Pakistan to permit sales of Chinese nuclear power plants to Islamabad. [37]

The official Chinese response to the U.S.-India nuclear agreement, however, has been rather muted. Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang commented only that any U.S. nuclear cooperation with India should contribute to the strengthening of international nuclear nonproliferation efforts and reiterated the hope that states, like India, which are outside the NPT, would join the pact as non-nuclear weapon states, permanently renouncing nuclear arms. [38]

Some officially sanctioned Chinese commentators, however, took issue with the Indo-U.S. agreement, accusing Washington of applying a double standard in its nonproliferation policies towards India and Iran. One unsigned commentary in the Chinese Communist Party’s official paper, the People’s Daily, entitled, “Nuclear Nonproliferation Regime’s Embarrassment,” decried the negative impact of the deal on the international nonproliferation regime. [39]

Chinese media reports also focused on the expansion of U.S.-India ties, in particular in the areas of defense and energy cooperation, as well as economic relations. According to these media analyses, the Bush Administration seeks to consolidate the U.S.-India relationship by focusing on three key areas. The first involves forming a strong politico-strategic partnership by emphasizing the two states’ shared values as the world’s oldest and largest democracies and their common interests in combating global terrorism, achieving energy security, and maintaining regional stability. The second focuses on the two countries’ expanding bilateral trade to achieve a target of $50 billion by 2009. [40]

But perhaps the most significant for Chinese commentators, apart from the nuclear deal, is growing Indo-U.S. defense and space cooperation. They cite the fact that the U.S. Department of Defense has signed a ten-year defense cooperation agreement with India in which the United States would provide a broad range of defense equipment and military technologies, including fighter aircraft (F-16s and F-18s), and work with India on joint research and development in the military sector. The United States is also planning space cooperation with India, which, they note, could enhance Indian missile capabilities, increasing the potential threat to China. [41]

Much of the criticism towards the U.S.-India agreement highlights a discrepancy between the U.S. demands that Iran cease its uranium enrichment and plutonium reprocessing activities for fear that it will develop nuclear weapons, and U.S. willingness to allow full nuclear cooperation with India, a state that has already developed nuclear weapons outside the NPT. While the contexts of these two states and their decisions are very different, Iran has sought to use this perception of U.S. inconsistency to attack the United States and defend its own actions.

Iranian media commentators, policy makers, and politicians have therefore consistently claimed that the U.S.-India nuclear deal is a “scandal” that exemplifies the “hypocrisy,” “double standards,” and “impudence” of American foreign policy. The state-owned Vision of the Islamic Republic of Iran radio channel describes the U.S.-India deal as a case of “nuclear apartheid.” The commentator highlights how the Bush Administration disregarded the IAEA by signing the deal and argues: “Such behavior sends a clear message to the international community: any country that supports American policies is allowed to possess nuclear weapons. Any other country that opposes American policies and wishes to remain independent is not permitted to acquire even peaceful nuclear technology – even if it adheres to the agency’s guidelines.” [42] State officials have also publicly condemned the deal. The speaker of the Iranian parliament, Ghulam Ali Haddad Adel, criticized the “West’s” attitude towards Iran: “We have no objection to India. We object to America’s dual attitude.” [43] Mehdi Akhunzade, Iranian ambassador to the UN in Vienna also pointed out this “dual attitude” in an interview with a European daily, by arguing India was “rewarded by Bush,” yet Iran is singled out even though it signed the NPT. [44]

While the views of these state officials and the state-owned media tend to be more conservative by Iranian political standards, there is also condemnation of this deal in the more moderate reformist outlets. In papers like Etemad, one commentator highlights how Iran was among one of the first countries to join the NPT, yet is prevented by the “West” from developing “peaceful nuclear technology.” [45] Another writer views the deal as forging an American alliance with India to balance China’s emerging power. [46] In the case of references to the “West,” it seems that some Iranians have conflated American policy with that of Europe. Second, the criticism is directed not against India per se, but the perceived “double standards” of American policy on the nuclear issue.