Not worried about nuclear deal with India, says Canada

 Canada on Wednesday said that it did not have any proliferation concern over civil nuclear cooperation with India, even as External Affairs Minister S M Krishna and his Canadian counterpart John Baird agreed to expedite implementation of the bilateral deal signed in 2010 for collaboration in the field of atomic energy.

“We have no concerns with respect to proliferation. These concerns and issues are things of the past. I am confident that these discussions (over implementing the nuke cooperation agreement) will be concluded early,” Baird, on a four-day visit to India, told journalists after his meeting with Krishna.

His remark came 38 years after Canada cried foul over India’s first nuclear test in 1974. Ottawa had snapped its nuclear ties with New Delhi after the latter had allegedly used plutonium produced in a Canadian reactor installed in the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre in Trombay for its Pokhran-I nuclear test.

Canada had supplied the nuclear reactor CIRUS to India in mid-1950s under the Atom for Peace programme for civilian use of nuclear energy. India had procured heavy water required for the research reactor from the US.

However, after New Delhi secured a waiver from the Nuclear Suppliers’ Group in 2008, Canada was the fourth country – after US, Russia and France – to ink a civil nuke cooperation agreement with India. The deal was signed after Prime Minister Manmohan Singh met his Canadian counterpart Stephen Harper on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Toronto.

But both New Delhi and Ottawa made little progress in finalising the arrangements for implementation of the agreement over the past two years.

“The two governments are in the process of working out arrangements (for nuke cooperation), details of which are being negotiated. These are matters of details, which is being worked out in consultations,” said Krishna, adding: “We look forward to early completion of negotiations on appropriate arrangements for the bilateral civil nuclear cooperation agreement.”

Krishna and Baird were jointly addressing a news-conference after they headed the delegations of the two countries in a dialogue, which was primarily intended to set the stage for Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s visit to India later this year.

Canadian company Cameco – the largest uranium miner of the world – has already set up a unit in India.