By Devirupa Mitra, IANS
New Delhi : France backs India’s nuclear energy needs and also its claim for a permanent seat on the UN Security Council, visiting French President Nicolas Sarkozy said Friday while calling for expansion of the elite G-8 grouping “to G-13” with India as a member.
Sarkozy said the right words to bring a smile on the faces of his Indian hosts at a joint press conference with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh after talks during which he also lobbied for raising bilateral trade and intensifying defence cooperation.
Stating that there was a “lot of convergence on international issues”, Sarkozy said: “We will put some concrete in our strategic will”. He also asserted that Indo-French strategic partnership would get “fresh impetus” from the visit.
Visiting India just three days after British Prime Minister Gordon Brown was in New Delhi with a similar pro-India message, Sarkozy, accompanied by a large business delegation, said he understood India’s need for nuclear energy to fund the country’s rapidly increasing growth.
“We know that India’s energy needs are huge. If we don’t allow civilian nuclear energy, then they will go to more polluting sources,” said Sarkozy, who arrived Friday on a two-day visit.
“France can be an advocate for nuclear energy cooperation with India,” he said, adding that his country wanted to help India make the right choice for “sustainable development”.
“India has never contributed to proliferation,” Sarkozy said.
Speaking at the press conference, Singh appreciated France’s “steadfast support for the lifting of international restrictions on nuclear cooperation with India that are still in place”.
He added that negotiators have concluded a bilateral agreement for co-operation in the civil nuclear field.
According to the Joint Statement, released after the talks, this proposed pact would cover the entire gambit “from basic and applied research to full civil nuclear cooperation including reactors, fuel supply and management”.
But the document was not signed at Friday’s ceremony as no co-operation pact could be unveiled unless India signed a safeguards agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency and got a waiver from the Nuclear Suppliers Group.
The government also has to get the go-ahead from its intransigent Left allies to initial the safeguards agreement – which is necessary for the United States Congress to consider the text of a bilateral agreement to operationalise the India-US nuclear deal.
According to Sarkozy, once an international waiver was obtained to enable the resumption of nuclear commerce with India and once the domestic debate in India on the issue — “on which I obviously don’t want to comment” — had blown over, France could come into the picture. He noted that France’s flagship nuclear power company Areva could help India.
On the delay in reaching a final safeguards agreement, Singh said, “international negotiations do take some time”. “Our discussions are moving forward and it is my sincere hope that they can be successfully concluded without loss of further time,” he added.
While this agreement could not be signed Friday, the two countries signed deals in nuclear research “which is a key for preparing for the future”. In this area, they agreed to intensify contacts between nuclear safety authorities in “the context of future industrial cooperation”.
At the press conference, India’s Atomic Energy Commission chairman Anil Kakodkar signed a deal for the department of atomic energy’s participation in the research project Jules Horowitz Reactor, built by the French Atomic Energy Commission at Cadarache.
Sarkozy also reiterated traditional French support for a permanent seat for India in an expanded UN Security Council.
Agreeing with Singh’s statement that global institutions should reflect contemporary reality, the French president called for an expansion of the G-8 group of industrialised economies to turn into G-13, including India.
On the defence front, the prime minister said that they had “agreed to go beyond the buyer-seller relationship” and put the spotlight on “joint research and development projects, transfer of technology and greater military exchanges”.
India’s third largest military supplier, France had been hoping to garner the contract for supply of light helicopters to the Indian army as part of an European consortium, Eurocopter. But the tender was scrapped in December 2007 due to irregularities cited by central auditors. Though the French were miffed, they have got their eye on other defence deals including the upgradation of Mirage 2000 fighter planes of the Indian Air Force.
In a significant decision, India has agreed to start discussions on a “Status of force” agreement, with France, which governs the stationing of troops in each other’s territory.
Both leaders set a target to raise the current level of bilateral trade of $6.23 billion (4.23 billion euros) in 2007 to $17.6 billion (12 billion euros) in 2012. Sarkozy asserted that there would be 10 billion euros of French investment over the next four years.
The four agreements signed Friday included for protection of classified defence information, transfer of prisoners, and cooperation between India’s Department of Atomic Energy and its French counterpart on developing the Jules Horowitz nuclear reactors and establishment of the French development agency, Agence Française de Développement. A MoU on the establishment in India of an international laboratory in the field of neurosciences was also inked.
The two sides also released a joint declaration on the fight against global warming.