France and India vow to boost civil nuclear cooperation
Indian and French leaders vowed yesterday to boost nuclear energy cooperation at an annual summit on EU-India ties dominated by trade, global warming and the world financial crisis.
"France, which has great trust in India and its prime minister, has worked hard so that India can have access to civilian nuclear energy," said French President Nicolas Sarkozy, whose country holds the rotating EU presidency.
He made the comment at a press conference with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who arrived in France from the US, where he took India a major step closer to rejoining global nuclear commerce after 30 years in the cold.
Singh was to meet Tuesday in Paris with French political leaders and nuclear energy executives and was expected to sign a major nuclear trade pact.
If the deal goes through, French nuclear giant Areva said Monday it hoped to negotiate the delivery to India of two third-generation European Pressurized Reactors (EPRs), as well as nuclear fuel.
The US House of Representatives on Saturday passed a major atomic energy pact with New Delhi, which if it gets Senate approval will allow India access to Western technology and cheap atomic energy, provided it allows UN inspections of some of its nuclear facilities.
India was banned from nuclear trade three decades ago after it carried out its first nuclear test and refused to sign the Non-Proliferation Treaty, but the Vienna-based Nuclear Suppliers Group lifted the ban earlier this month after hard lobbying by Washington.
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