indo asian news service, Toronto, April 11: A deal between Canada’s biggest uranium producer, Cameco, and India to supply fuel for nuclear power plants is likely to be signed during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to the North American country this month, a Canadian daily has reported.
“There is a fairly late-stage negotiation on and I think it’s likely to conclude successfully,” The Globe and Mail Friday quoted a source familiar with the Canada-India uranium supply talks as saying.
“I just don’t know whether it’s going to conclude by next week.”
Modi will visit Canada from April 14 to 16 on the last leg of his ongoing three-nation tour.
The report cited a Facebook post by the Indian Prime Minister in which he stated that he looked “forward to resuming our civil nuclear energy cooperation with Canada, especially for sourcing uranium fuel for our nuclear power plants”.
Canada had banned exports of uranium and nuclear hardware to India in the 1970s after New Delhi allegedly used Canadian technology to build a nuclear bomb.
However, the two countries turned the page in 2013 with the signing of the Canada-India Nuclear Cooperation Agreement, which effectively meant that Ottawa no longer saw New Delhi as a nuclear pariah but as a safe, responsible nuclear power despite the latter’s refusal to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
The Globe and Mail cited the source as saying that if the nuclear deal does not come through during Modi’s visit “then Ottawa and New Delhi will reiterate their commitment to Canada-India nuclear cooperation and say, ‘Cameco is in the middle of negotiations and we expect an announcement in due course’”
