Historic N-deal with Russia

NEW DELHI: Taking civilian nuclear cooperation to a new level, India and Russia on Monday signed an agreement for setting up additional Russian reactors in India with the guarantee of uninterrupted fuel supplies.

The inter-governmental agreement, which goes beyond the 123 Agreement that governs Indo-US cooperation, will ensure uninterrupted power supplies to reactors supplied by Russia in case of a termination of cooperation in the sector and also gives reprocessing rights to India, which will be allowed to enrich Russian supplied uranium of up to 20%. Unlike the 123 Agreement, the agreement has provisions for transfer of enrichment and nuclear technology.

The agreement was signed after Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Russian president Dmitry Medvedev held talks on Monday. Mr Singh, who was keen to emphasis that India’s ties with other countries — read the US — would not be at Russia’s expense, himself announced that the nuclear deal had been signed.

“Today we have signed an agreement that broadens the reach of our cooperation beyond supplies of nuclear reactors to areas of research and development and a whole range of areas in nuclear energy,” Mr Singh said at a Kremlin press conference. He added: “India accords the highest priority to its relations with Russia. This is a relationship that stands on its own footing and is not influenced by our relations with any other country.”

Russia is setting up four additional reactors in Kudankulam and has been allotted another site ata Haripur in West Bengal.

Mr Medvedev, however, said Russia did not want to see new states obtaining nuclear weapons capabilities. “Russia is certainly not interested in enlargement of nuclear club. All research must be peaceful. Military technology is a separate area regulated by international conventions. He then went on to say nuclear cooperation with India had a “very big, very good future”.

“We are satisfied with the cooperation and I hope today’s agreement will pave the way for greater cooperation in this field in the years to come,” he said.

Asked about the G-8 bid to put curbs on ENR technology for non-NPT countries, he said: “Nothing changes for us”. Apart from civilian nuclear cooperation, the two sides also signed two defence pacts and agreed to share intelligence to counter terrorism.

Expressing concern, Mr Medvedev said: “There is a common threat that India and Russia face. We should consolidate our anti-terror base. We will provide concrete help in anti-terror activities.” He further added the situation in Afghanistan and Pakistan showed the importance of this. Mr Singh, in turn, said India and Russia shared similar views on global issues. “Our views are similar on global issues and our cooperation can extend to cooperation at international level,” Mr Singh said.