By IANS,
New Delhi : India and Australia Friday inched closer towards forging a strategic partnership as New Delhi thanked Canberra for its “constructive” support in the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) and urged it to re-consider and export uranium for Indian nuclear reactors.
In a sign of a new congruence of strategic and economic interests, the two countries joined hands to strengthen global non-proliferation efforts.
Canberra also voiced support for including India in the Asia-Pacific Economic Community (APEC) when its moratorium is lifted in 2010. It reiterated its support for a permanent place for India in an expanded UN Security Council.
The Australian prime minister’s special envoy would visit India later in the year as part of regional consultations on the larger Asia Pacific Community.
At the end of talks between External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee and his Australian counterpart Stephen Smith, who is on a four-day visit to India, a joint statement said: “Both ministers agreed to take the level of relations to a ‘strategic partnership’ and work towards the objective.”
The two ministers held talks on an entire spectrum of bilateral and global issues, including acceleration of trade and investment, enhanced defence cooperation and closer scientific, cultural and educational exchanges.
Mukherjee “appreciated the constructive and positive role played by Australia in the recent meetings of the NSG”, the statement said.
Underlining India’s desire to increase production of nuclear electricity that has received a big boost with the NSG waiver, Mukherjee requested Smith to reconsider exporting uranium to India, official sources said.
Acknowledging India’s energy needs, Smith reiterated the Labour government’s policy not to sell uranium to countries that have not signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
There may be a breakthrough on this issue when Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd comes to India, likely towards the end of this year.
The two countries, however, agreed not to let the uranium issue come in the way of growing economic relationship and the possibilities of forming a durable all-encompassing partnership, which Smith described as a Test match rather than a quick Twenty20 cricket.
Bilateral trade has already touched $11 billion. The two countries are ready to infuse more economic dynamism in their ties by concluding a study on free trade area by the end of the year.
Other important initiatives include establishing the Chief Executive Officers’ Forum. An Australia-India Roundtable would be held in November in Sydney, with the Lowy Institute and the Indian Council of World Affairs as the convenors.
Smith’s visit turned out to be a window for New Delhi to get an insight into the thinking of the new Labour regime in Canberra which is largely perceived as pro-China, perhaps because Prime Minister Rudd is a fluent speaker in Mandarin.
Smith, however, set the record straight in a stirring lecture Thursday outlining the future of India-Australia relationship.
“Today the world sees India, the largest parliamentary democracy, assuming the global influence on which its economic size and strength, its strategic weight and its rich history, entitle it,” he said.