Australia to sell uranium with safegaurds to India

Melbourne: Rejecting the suggestion that selling uranium to India would constitute a risk to global security, Australia has said that it would supply uranium to India and Russia.

Announcing this, Australian Prime Minister John Howard said it did not make sense to sell uranium to China but not to India. He said Australia would sell uranium to India under "strict conditions", which he discussed telephonically with Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh last night.

So far, India''s refusal to sign the NPT for being discriminatory has come in the way of Australia supplying uranium to India. The Australian government has so far avoided any comment on whether there are sufficient safeguards to sell uranium to a country outside the international treaty on non-proliferation.

The Australian government says it would include a bilateral safeguards agreement to ensure the uranium supplied by it was used only for peaceful purposes. India would be required to place two-thirds of its existing nuclear power plants, and any new facilities, under United Nations supervision, foreign minister Alexander Downer said.

Australian officials also confirmed that a new agreement to sell uranium to Russia could be signed next month during the visit of President Vladimir Putin to Australia. The deal would pave the way for Australian uranium to fuel Russian reactors for the first time, The Age reported today.

Australia holds world''s largest uranium reserves.