After Russia, France operationalises nuclear accord

[RAM]

After Russia, France operationalises nuclear accord



France has become the second country after Russia to fully opertionalise the inter-country nuclear agreement with India.

The French National Assembly adopted a law authorising ratification of the Cooperation Agreement between India and France on the Development of Peaceful Uses of Nuclear Energy signed in Paris on September 30 last year. The Senate approved the same law on October 15 this year.“The unanimous vote by both Assemblies is an important milestone in the development of the civilian nuclear cooperation between France and India. It will enable the early entry into force of the Agreement. It now paves the way for strengthening relations between French and Indian partners and for more concrete developments in the industrial field,” said a French Embassy release here.
“France and India are keen to build a multiform partnership. The strengthening of their civilian nuclear cooperation will contribute to economic growth and development, improve energy security and contribute to limiting greenhouse gas emissions,” the release said.

N-power park

India has allotted a nuclear power park at Jaitapur in Maharashtra’s Ratnagiri district to the French company Areva, to build two power plants initially with an option for setting up more. Both countries have also reached an understanding on guaranteed supply of uranium to power these reactors.According to government sources here, France has agreed to reprocess the spent nuclear fuel from French reactors under safeguards.Following an assurance given by French President Nicolas Sarkozy to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh during their last summit meeting in Paris, France would not put hurdles to transfer of enrichment and reprocessing technologies provided it is done under the watch of the International Atomic Energy Agency

The Hindu : News / International : After Russia, France operationalises nuclear accord

 

[roma]

Hi RAM,
one qn please., these agreements with france and russia , are they dependent in any operational way on the agreement with india-usa ? i.e if the usa -india nuke deal gets stuck will these two be affected in principle ? tia to anyone who knows

 

[LETHALFORCE]

we have independent agreements with France and Russia and possibly Canada in the near future. Obama has tried to tie NPT to reprocessing but everyone has their own reprocessing agreements with India. USA is losing big buisness in India because of burecracy as Obama tries to change the term of the original Bush nuclear deal.

 

[roma]

LF - thanks and yes if france, russia , canada and indeed many others can forge independent deals with india then it become obvious that the usa if it wants to have a piece of the cake should operationalise in time too. .any dilliying -around means they lose out in the very opportunity they jointly helped create.

 

[LETHALFORCE]

USA/George Bush did us a big favor in getting us the NSG waiver which made all these agreements with other countries possible, the waiver in my opinion is even more important than our nuclear deal with USA.

 

[roma]

yes agree that NSG waiver is global approval whereas usa-india is specific approval. I think george was banking on the fact that india's friendship with the usa was turning around and he cannot be too wrong on that given the diaspora in the usa and other supportive factors. ...getting the global nsg is a precursor to india's favors in the longer term wherere the possibility of a permanenet seat on the UNSC gets in view i suppose .