India and US agree to build 6 new nuclear power plants
WASHINGTON/NEW DELHI: The US has agreed to build six atomic p o wer p l a n t s i n I n d i a to strengthen bilateral security and civil nuclear cooperation and expressed its strong support to India’s early membership in the NSG, the two countries said in a joint statement issued at the conclusion of the 9th round of India-us Strategic Security Dialogue on Wednesday.
“They committed to strengthen bilateral security and civil nuclear cooperation, including the establishment of six US nuclear power plants in India,” the joint statement said, without giving details of the sites. The meeting was co-chaired by foreign secretary Vijay Gokhale and Andrea Thompson, the US under secretary of state for arms control and international security.
India and the US signed a historic agreement to cooperate in civil nuclear energy sector in October 2008. The deal gave a fillip to bilateral ties, which have been on an upswing since.
A major aspect of the deal was the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) that gave a special waiver to India enabling it to sign cooperation agreements with a dozen countries.
Post-waiver, India signed civil nuclear cooperation agreements with the US, France, Russia, Canada, Argentina, Australia, Sri Lanka, the UK, Japan, Vietnam, Bangladesh, Kazakhstan and South Korea.
On Wednesday, the US also reaffirmed its strong support to India’s early membership in the 48-member the NSG. China has blocked India’s pending membership to the elite grouping that seeks to prevent proliferation of nuclear weapons.
During the meeting, the two sides exchanged views on a wide range of global security and nonproliferation challenges and reaffirmed their commitment to work together to prevent the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and their delivery systems and to deny access to such weapons by terrorists and non-state actors.
On March 12, Indra Mani Pandey, India’s additional secretary for disarmament and international security affairs, and Yleem DS Poblete, US assistant secretary of state for arms control, veri f i cation and compliance, co-chaired the third round of India-us Space Dialogue. The two delegations discussed trends in space threats and opportunities for cooperation bilaterally and in multilateral fora.