India signed a pact on Monday opening up its civilian nuclear plants to UN inspections, a condition of a US-led deal allowing it to import nuclear materials and technology after a three-decade freeze.

It will be required to open up 14 of 22 reactors to inspections by 2014 under the deal with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the UN's non-proliferation watchdog.

India's next step will be to specify which reactors will come under inspection, an Indian government official said.

IAEA oversight was stipulated when the 45-nation Nuclear Suppliers Group agreed in September to lift a ban on nuclear trade with India, imposed after its first nuclear test in 1974 and for its refusal to join the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

India, Pakistan and Israel are the only countries never to have signed the NPT.

Washington pushed through the NSG "waiver" because this was indispensable to implementing its own nuclear cooperation pact to supply India with nuclear technology.

US officials said the deal, a major plank in former US president George W. Bush's foreign policy, would forge a strategic partnership with India, help it meet rising energy demand and open up a nuclear market worth billions of dollars.

Disarmament advocates complained that it undercut the NPT, meant to prevent the spread and production of nuclear weapons.

After its first nuclear test in 1974, India conducted a series of nuclear tests in 1998, prompting rival Pakistan to follow suit within weeks.

ARMS RACE

Critics fear Indian access to foreign nuclear materials could allow it to divert domestic supplies to its bomb programme and drive Pakistan into another arms race.

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