By IANS,
New Delhi : In an important milestone in bilateral ties, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper Tuesday said his country has concluded negotiations with India to export uranium and nuclear supplies for civilian uses, marking a reversal of a four-decade ban on selling atomic material to India.
India and Canada completed talks on an administrative agreement that will enable Canadian companies such as Cameco Corp (CCJ) to sell nuclear materials, equipment and technology to India, said a statement by Harper’s office Tuesday.
Harper stressed that selling uranium to India will be an important economic opportunity for Canadian companies.
“Being able to resolve these issues and move forward is, we believe, a really important economic opportunity for an important Canadian industry, part of the energy industry, that should pay dividends in terms of jobs and growth for Canadians down the road,” Harper said.
He, however, has not set a timeline for concluding a safeguards agreement to implement the nuclear deal the two countries signed in 2010.
The progress in operationalising civil nuclear deal was among key issues discussed between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Harper, who is here on a six-day visit.
“We also welcomed the recent progress made towards concluding the modalities for the effective operationalisation of the agreement on civil nuclear energy cooperation that we had signed in 2010,” Manmohan Singh said in a statement to the media after the talks.