Moscow ready to give India four reactors and provide nuclear fuel

In defiance of international objections, particularly from Washington, Russia has offered to help India construct four more nuclear reactors.

Moscow has also incurred condemnation from the United States for defying the global nuclear blockade of India by agreeing to provide it with low enriched uranium for the Tarapur atomic power station near the western port city of Bombay.

India's nuclear rival, Pakistan, with which it has fought three wars since independence 52 years ago and an 11-week border war in 1999, said the shipment of Russian uranium would further widen south Asia's security imbalance by bolstering India's nuclear weapons capability.

The contract for 58 tonnes of Russian fuel for the twin reactor, which was signed during President Vladimir Putin's India trip last October, followed a separate, but little publicised, agreement on bilateral co-operation on peaceful applications of nuclear energy.

Tarapur has been severely short of adequate fuel, threatening the reactor's safety and continued power supply to India's main industrial belt around Bombay.

The Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), the cartel of nuclear-exporting countries which monitors and regulates the transfer of nuclear material, was highly critical of Russia at its meeting last month in Vienna for supplying the uranium to India.

Russia defended itself against charges of nuclear proliferation, claiming that it was within President Putin's post-election presidential decree to allow the shipment of nuclear materials in "extraordinary and exceptional situations".

Moscow invited further opprobrium when it recently offered to build four more atomic plants at Kudamkulam in southern Tamil Nadu state, where it is already constructing two large 1,000-megawatt nuclear power reactors for $2.6 billion (£2.28 billion).

Russia had justified the earlier deal, signed soon after India's 1998 nuclear tests, on the grounds that the agreement was reached "in principle" before the NSG tightened its guidelines in 1992 to include the inspection facility clause.

Russia is supplying most of the critical components while engineers from the local state owned Nuclear Power Corporation will erect the plants by 2005-07.

Rigid NSG guidelines, however, permit safety-related exports only after consultations with its members to circumvent a potential nuclear contingency. The punitive NGS restrictions make the export of nuclear related items conditional on the importing state accepting international inspections of all its nuclear facilities.

India, which is not a signatory to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and opposes the follow-on Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), rejects inspections as that would rob it of its nuclear weapons programme. So far this had barred any country from selling India nuclear items.

France, which also "sympathised" with India's security concerns, is also keen to sell Delhi nuclear reactors.