India, UK set to announce civil nuclear deal
13 Jan 2010
London: India's run of civil nuclear deals with countries around the world continues unabated with a declaration on civil nuclear cooperation between India and the United Kingdom now firmly on the cards. This was indicated by Lord Peter Mandelson, British secretary of state for business, innovation and skills, who said he hoped to sign such a declaration when India's commerce minister, Anand Sharma, visited London sometime early this year.
In an exclusive interview, Mandelson confirmed: "We are indeed working with the Indian government on closer relations in the sharing of civil nuclear technology. I hope that I will be able to sign a civil nuclear cooperation declaration with minister Sharma early this year."
The British minister did not mention any dates for the visit.
Such a deal could have been secured last month, when Mandelson visited New Delhi, had not India objected to a non-proliferation clause in the draft submitted by the UK.
Canadian premier Stephen Harper was similarly disappointed in the course of his state visit to India in November last year when similar NPT-related clauses were firmly rejected by Delhi. To Harper's credit he came back with a revised draft almost immediately in December, at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meet in Jamaica (CHOGM), and gained Indian approval.
Faced with similar Indian aggressiveness on matters related to the NPT, London may have decided that discretion was the better part of NPT valour and followed Harper's example to get in line for a piece of the action in what is recognisably the world's most important civil nuclear market after China.
The declaration would be an important, and necessary, development but operationalising would still be some distance away as New Delhi needs to amend domestic policies which restrict nuclear collaboration to public sector entities. As in the United States most potential British suppliers of nuclear technology are in the private sector.
In contrast, French and Russian firms are largely government owned.
