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(AFP) – 1 hour ago.
NEW DELHI — India has suggested that countries refusing to match nuclear reactor sales with technology transfers could be frozen out of one of the world's largest reactor markets.
The veiled threat came in a television interview broadcast Sunday, in which Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao was asked about new Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) guidelines on sensitive uranium enrichment and reprocessing technology.
The guidelines restrict the sale of such technology to countries which, like nuclear-armed India, have not signed up to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
India sees the move as a challenge to the waiver from NSG rules -- negotiated by the United States -- that the country was granted in 2008.
Companies from France, Russia, the United States and Japan are competing for a slice of the $175 billion India plans to spend on nuclear reactors, and Rao hinted that a willingness to provide technology transfers would be a factor in awarding contracts.
"There are leverages that we can exert from our side," Rao said. "We have an expanding nuclear industry. This is a great attraction to the rest of the world."
Asked if that meant India would ban reactor purchases from countries that follow the new transfer guidelines, Rao said: "We will defend our interests to the hilt."
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