By Manish Chand, IANS
Moscow : Ahead of the winter session of parliament, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh Monday said his government would decide on approaching the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) for negotiations only after discussions with coalition partners.
“We are discussing the issue with coalition partners and that process of evolving consensus is still on,” Manmohjan Singh said when asked when India would approach the IAEA for safeguard talks that will operationalise the civil nuclear agreement.
He also said India and Russia would continue to expand civil nuclear cooperation between them.
“We continued our dialogue on energy. I thanked the president for Russia’s steadfast support in supplementing our nuclear energy programme, and its assistance in lifting international restrictions on nuclear cooperation with India that are still in place,” Manmohan Singh said at a join press interaction with President Vladimir Putin at the Kremlin.
“Defence cooperation is one of the pillars of our strategic partnership. Our decision on the co-development and co-production of the fifth generation fighter and the Multi-role Transport Aircraft are major steps forward.”
Earlier India and Russia signed four agreements in space, defence, trade and narcotics control and agreed to expand their ongoing cooperation in civilian nuclear energy.
The agreements were signed after Manmohan Singh held talks with Putin that were characterised by “warmth, cordiality and unanimity on all issues of mutual interest”.
In a clear message to those who suspected a chill in India-Russia ties, the two leaders affirmed their commitment to consolidate and expand their strategic ties and underpinned it with a robust economic partnership.
Although the two countries did not sign a pact on building four additional reactors at Kudankulam in Tamil Nadu as the details were yet to be finalised, they decided to expand their operation in the crucial area of civil nuclear energy.