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New Delhi: India and Australia will hold the third round of talks in New Delhi this month to forge an agreement on the sale of uranium to India.
The talks follow a meeting between foreign minister Salman Khurshid, who is in Australia to take part in a conference of the Indian Ocean Region littoral states, and his Australian counterpart Julie Bishop in Canberra.
“The ministers reaffirmed the commitment of both countries to finalize a Civil Nuclear Cooperation Agreement to enable the sale of Australian uranium to India and announced that the third round of negotiations would be held in Delhi in the week of 25 November,” the Australian high commission said in a statement on Friday.
Khurshid’s meeting with Bishop was the first between the two foreign ministers since the Tony Abbott government took office in Australia after elections in September.
Energy-starved India—Asia’s third-largest economy—is looking to nuclear power to supplement its existing options to fuel economic growth. India has already concluded civil nuclear cooperation agreements with a clutch of countries, including Argentina, Kazakhstan and Namibia, and is in talks with some others like Japan.
India aims to upgrade its nuclear power generation capacity to 20,000 megawatts (MW) by 2020, from the current level of about 5,000MW. Australia has nearly 40% of the world’s known uranium reserves, but supplies only 19% of the world market. It has no nuclear power stations.
“There is a certain template to negotiate the civil nuclear agreement based on our agreements with other governments and we are going by that,” said a person familiar with the matter in New Delhi.
The person though did not give a timeline for the completion of the talks with Australia but observed that the Australian Liberal Party was better inclined towards India and the possible sale of uranium than the previous Labour Party government that was ousted in September.
India and Australia announced their intention to engage in talks on cooperation in civil nuclear energy during Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s visit to India in October 2012.
This was preceded by the Australian Labour Party in December 2011 voting to lift a longstanding ban on the sale of uranium to India, which conducted nuclear tests in 1974 and 1998 and is not a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation treaty.
The two developments dramatically transformed India-Australia ties, which had been bogged down by tensions over a series of attacks—seen as racially motivated—on Indian students, mainly in 2009.
The Australian high commission statement said that both countries also agreed that the “conclusion of a high-quality Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement would underpin a further significant expansion of the trade and investment relationship to mutual benefit.”
“Following the successful visit by Indian defence minister (A.K.) Antony to Australia in June, we also had good discussions on how to strengthen our security and strategic cooperation, including reviewing progress towards conducting a bilateral maritime exercise in 2015,” Bishop was quoted as saying by the statement.
The ministers also confirmed that the inaugural cyber security dialogue would be held in the first half of 2014 and underlined their commitment to work together to address threats such as terrorism and transnational crime, the statement added.
http://www.livemint.com/Politics/rQ...a-Australia-to-hold-third-round-of-talks.html
The talks follow a meeting between foreign minister Salman Khurshid, who is in Australia to take part in a conference of the Indian Ocean Region littoral states, and his Australian counterpart Julie Bishop in Canberra.
“The ministers reaffirmed the commitment of both countries to finalize a Civil Nuclear Cooperation Agreement to enable the sale of Australian uranium to India and announced that the third round of negotiations would be held in Delhi in the week of 25 November,” the Australian high commission said in a statement on Friday.
Khurshid’s meeting with Bishop was the first between the two foreign ministers since the Tony Abbott government took office in Australia after elections in September.
Energy-starved India—Asia’s third-largest economy—is looking to nuclear power to supplement its existing options to fuel economic growth. India has already concluded civil nuclear cooperation agreements with a clutch of countries, including Argentina, Kazakhstan and Namibia, and is in talks with some others like Japan.
India aims to upgrade its nuclear power generation capacity to 20,000 megawatts (MW) by 2020, from the current level of about 5,000MW. Australia has nearly 40% of the world’s known uranium reserves, but supplies only 19% of the world market. It has no nuclear power stations.
“There is a certain template to negotiate the civil nuclear agreement based on our agreements with other governments and we are going by that,” said a person familiar with the matter in New Delhi.
The person though did not give a timeline for the completion of the talks with Australia but observed that the Australian Liberal Party was better inclined towards India and the possible sale of uranium than the previous Labour Party government that was ousted in September.
India and Australia announced their intention to engage in talks on cooperation in civil nuclear energy during Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s visit to India in October 2012.
This was preceded by the Australian Labour Party in December 2011 voting to lift a longstanding ban on the sale of uranium to India, which conducted nuclear tests in 1974 and 1998 and is not a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation treaty.
The two developments dramatically transformed India-Australia ties, which had been bogged down by tensions over a series of attacks—seen as racially motivated—on Indian students, mainly in 2009.
The Australian high commission statement said that both countries also agreed that the “conclusion of a high-quality Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement would underpin a further significant expansion of the trade and investment relationship to mutual benefit.”
“Following the successful visit by Indian defence minister (A.K.) Antony to Australia in June, we also had good discussions on how to strengthen our security and strategic cooperation, including reviewing progress towards conducting a bilateral maritime exercise in 2015,” Bishop was quoted as saying by the statement.
The ministers also confirmed that the inaugural cyber security dialogue would be held in the first half of 2014 and underlined their commitment to work together to address threats such as terrorism and transnational crime, the statement added.
http://www.livemint.com/Politics/rQ...a-Australia-to-hold-third-round-of-talks.html
