US lifts decades-old ban from BARC, IGCAR and Indian Rare Earths for nuclear ties; adds 11 from China

New Delhi: Weeks after the outgoing National Security Adviser, Jake Sullivan, visited India and five days ahead of Donald Trump's inauguration, the United States on Wednesday (Jan 15) announced that it had removed three major Indian organisations—Indian Rare Earths, Indira Gandhi Atomic Research Center (IGCAR), and Bhabha Atomic Research Center (BARC)—from its restrictive list to spur civil nuclear cooperation. 

The US Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security has added 11 Chinese organisations to its Entity List, citing activities that are "contrary to US national security and foreign policy interests."

With this development, Indian nuclear institutions and American entities can enhance civil nuclear cooperation. The ban on Indian organisations was imposed about two decades ago. India and the US signed the Civil Nuclear Cooperation Agreement in 2008, but even then, the ban on Indian entities was not lifted. 

In a statement, the US Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security said that this decision aims to "support US foreign policy objectives by reducing barriers to advanced energy cooperation, including joint research and development and science and technology cooperation, towards shared energy security needs and goals."

It also said: "The United States and India share a commitment to advancing peaceful nuclear cooperation and associated research and development activities, with strengthened science and technology cooperation over the past several years that has benefitted both countries and their partner countries around the world."

It must be mentioned that the US NSA, Jake Sullivan, who was in India 10 days back, had stressed in a press conference that Washington wants to remove longstanding restrictions on civil nuclear cooperation. 

"Although former president Bush and former PM Dr Manmohan Singh laid out a vision of civil nuclear cooperation nearly 20 years ago, we have yet to fully realise it," Sullivan had said in Delhi.

“The removal of these entities would enable stronger collaboration between the two nations,” Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Export Administration Matthew Borman said, adding that the removal of the Indian entities would enable closer cooperation between the two nations and enable them to "secure more resilient critical minerals and clean energy supply chains."