The Hindu : Front Page : Russia vows strong support in NSG

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Aug 15, 2007
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Russia vows strong support in NSG

Vladimir Radyuhin

Ready to sign deal for 4 more reactors at Koodankulam

MOSCOW: Russia will strongly support India on the lifting of nuclear cooperation curbs in the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), and will not wait for an NSG waiver to sign an accord with India for building four additional reactors at the Koodankulam power plant,

India’s special envoy Shyam Saran said: “We can certainly sign an inter-governmental agreement with Russia before negotiating deals with the NSG [Nuclear Suppliers Group] and the IAEA,” the special envoy told The Hindu here on Tuesday after meeting Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.

Russia is the first country Mr. Saran visited as part of India’s effort to marshal support from key members of the NSG for the removal of sanctions against India. From Russia, the special envoy will go to Germany, Brazil and Argentina. Mr. Saran said the Russian Foreign Minister vowed to give India strong support in the coming NSG debate.

“We discussed the kind of challenges we may face in the NSG and our expectations of support from Russia, and he was very positive and forthcoming in his remarks,” the special envoy said. It is understood that the Indo-Russian inter-governmental agreement on nuclear energy cooperation may come before the end of the year. It will be in pursuance of a memorandum of intent the two sides signed during Russian President Vladimir Putin’s visit to India in January.

“The inter-governmental agreement will provide for the construction of four additional reactors at Koodankulam and will lay guidelines for further nuclear energy cooperation between our two countries,” Mr. Saran said. Russia is currently building two reactors at the Koodankulam nuclear power plant under an agreement signed before Russia joined the NSG.

Good prospects

“The practical implementation of the agreement will come only after we are through with the NSG and the IAEA,” the special envoy noted. He said that Russia being “the only country which has functional cooperation with India in nuclear energy,” the prospects for enhancing this cooperation were very good.

“We’d like very much to expand cooperation with Russia in nuclear energy,” Mr. Saran said during a meeting on Tuesday with leading Russian experts on international affairs and nuclear non-proliferation.

Apart from the construction of more reactors, India “looks to long-term relations with Russia in the supply of nuclear fuel and would welcome Russia’s role in creating strategic fuel reserves,” the special envoy said.

He promised that India’s improved relations with the U.S. will not be at the cost of ties with Russia or any other country.

“We do not see it as a kind of a zero-sum game, where if we are developing our relations with the U.S. it means some minus for our relations with Russia or China. We want to upgrade our relations with all countries,” India’s special envoy said.

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