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India and Japan are gradually progressing toward agreement on a bilateral atomic trade accord, informed insiders told the Singapore Straits Times on Wednesday (see GSN, July 21).
An agreement would permit Japanese firms to export nuclear technology to India and enable the use of Japanese-manufactured atomic components by other nations in their work in the South Asian nation.
"A full agreement is still some months away, but you could see a notable announcement on the subject during the Japanese prime minister's trip to New Delhi," a source told the Singapore newspaper.
Japanese head of state Naoto Kan or his replacement is slated to travel to India in December.
On Friday, India was not brought up when the Japanese government asked lawmakers to sign off on atomic trade deals with Jordan, Russia, South Korea and Vietnam.
While the March disaster at Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant initially froze talks on the agreement, the main obstacle is nuclear-armed New Delhi's continued resistance to signing the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (see related GSN story, today).
Tokyo has strong rules against the sale of sensitive nuclear technologies to countries that have not joined the accords. In seeking an exemption to that policy, India has emphasized it has never delivered its nuclear weapons technology to outside parties and has drawn attention to its self-imposed moratorium on nuclear testing.
Nuclear powers France and the United States, which both have concluded their own atomic trade deals with India, have recently been pressing Tokyo to make an exception in granting a deal to India, the Straits Times reported (Ravi Velloor, Straits Times, Aug. 24).
NTI: Global Security Newswire - India, Japan Progressing Toward Atomic Trade Pact
An agreement would permit Japanese firms to export nuclear technology to India and enable the use of Japanese-manufactured atomic components by other nations in their work in the South Asian nation.
"A full agreement is still some months away, but you could see a notable announcement on the subject during the Japanese prime minister's trip to New Delhi," a source told the Singapore newspaper.
Japanese head of state Naoto Kan or his replacement is slated to travel to India in December.
On Friday, India was not brought up when the Japanese government asked lawmakers to sign off on atomic trade deals with Jordan, Russia, South Korea and Vietnam.
While the March disaster at Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant initially froze talks on the agreement, the main obstacle is nuclear-armed New Delhi's continued resistance to signing the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (see related GSN story, today).
Tokyo has strong rules against the sale of sensitive nuclear technologies to countries that have not joined the accords. In seeking an exemption to that policy, India has emphasized it has never delivered its nuclear weapons technology to outside parties and has drawn attention to its self-imposed moratorium on nuclear testing.
Nuclear powers France and the United States, which both have concluded their own atomic trade deals with India, have recently been pressing Tokyo to make an exception in granting a deal to India, the Straits Times reported (Ravi Velloor, Straits Times, Aug. 24).
NTI: Global Security Newswire - India, Japan Progressing Toward Atomic Trade Pact
