Pact with Russia improves India's nuclear security

RUSSIA AND India have signed an agreement to expand civil nuclear co-operation that is free from all restrictions, guaranteeing…

RUSSIA AND India have signed an agreement to expand civil nuclear co-operation that is free from all restrictions, guaranteeing against any future curbs or events.

Under the deal confirmed on Monday during Indian prime minister Manmohan Singh’s visit to Moscow, Russia will build more nuclear reactors in India, transfer the full range of nuclear energy technologies and ensure uninterrupted supply of nuclear fuel.

The deal, whose details were not spelt out by officials, states that Russia would neither stop supply fuel to the nuclear plants it would build in India nor take back its equipment even if the agreement falls through at a future date for any reason.

Analysts said this was a euphemism for continuing Russian nuclear support even if India conducted another nuclear test at a later date.

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No official in Delhi or Moscow, however, spelt out this aspect, which remains highly classified.

The Russian deal goes far beyond the India-US civil nuclear agreement confirmed last year, which calls, in the event of its termination, for the end of all nuclear co-operation and return of all associated US equipment and fuel.

Russia and France are among several countries seeking to expand their civil nuclear activity in India following New Delhi’s landmark nuclear deal with Washington. This controversial one-off deal permits civil nuclear trade with India, while allowing it to retain its strategic weapons programme and despite it not being a signatory to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

“Today we have signed an agreement which broadens the reach of our co-operation beyond the supply of nuclear reactors to areas of research and development and a whole range of areas of nuclear energy,” Mr Singh told a news conference at the Kremlin held jointly with Russian president Dmitry Medvedev.

Mr Medvedev spoke of “great potential” in the two countries’ relations, declaring that Moscow would not accept any foreign-imposed restrictions on its nuclear co-operation with India.

Sergei Kiriyenko, the head of Rosatom, Russia’s state nuclear agency, estimated the value of the deal at “several dozens of billions of dollars”. He said the agreement could involve Russia building up to 20 nuclear reactors in India.

Mr Singh, however, put the number at four for the time being.

Russian is constructing two 1,000MW light water plants in India’s southern Tamil Nadu state with four more proposed, but that number could increase exponentially and could include the next generation VVER-1200 reactors, producing 1,200MW of electricity.

India conducted five nuclear tests in 1998 and has since been building strategic deterrence based on land-, sea- and air-delivered weapons against nuclear rivals China and Pakistan.