India has signed a civil nuclear pact with uranium-rich Mongolia that will help it source uranium for its power plants. Mongolia is the sixth country with which New Delhi signed the civil nuclear pact after the 45-nation Nuclear Suppliers’ Group lifted a 34-year-old ban that had prevented India from trade in the field with the international community. India has earlier signed such agreements with the US, France, Russia, Kazakhstan and Namibia.
The agreement — a memorandum of understanding on cooperation in the field of peaceful use of radioactive minerals and nuclear energy — was signed between officials of the Department of Atomic energy from both sides in the presence of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Mongolian President Tsakhiagiin Elbegdorj in New Delhi on Sept. 14. A joint statement issued at the end of President Elbegdorj’s visit said a delegation from India will visit Mongolia to discuss the prospects for such cooperation.
Four other agreements that were signed between the two countries dealt with loan assistance, health and medical science, cultural exchange programme and cooperation in statistical matters. “We have decided to update our bilateral ties to the level of a ‘Comprehensive Partnership’,” Dr. Singh said.
“India has also agreed to provide Mongolia a soft loan of $ 25 million to help it stabilise its economy…”
India has also agreed to provide Mongolia a soft loan of $ 25 million to help it stabilise its economy in the wake of the financial crisis. In the area of human resource development and capacity building, New Delhi will double the number of annual slots for Mongolia under its Indian Technical and Economic Cooperation programme from 60 to 120.
The declaration also said that the development of defence exchanges and cooperation on the basis of the Agreement on Cooperation in Defence Matters signed in 2001 will continue. The fifth joint military exercise will be held in Mongolia later this month. The third meeting of the Joint Working Group on defence cooperation will be held in Ulaanbaatar next year.
India’s uranium hunt
First it was Kazakhstan, then Namibia and now Mongolia. In its quest for obtaining fuel for its nuclear power plants, India has been reaching out to every possible country that has some uranium resources and is willing to sell it to New Delhi.
The civil nuclear cooperation agreement with Mongolia is the sixth that New Delhi has signed since the 45-member Nuclear Suppliers’ Group formalised India’s re-entry into international nuclear commerce last year after 34 years of sanctions. Only three of them are with established nuclear powers — the United States, France and Russia. The Memorandum of Understanding signed with Mongolia falls into a pattern. Countries like Namibia, Mongolia and Kazakhstan are likely to be more reliable sources of uranium as compared to some other nations which are still reluctant to do nuclear business with India. In fact, despite the waiver New Delhi earned from the NSG, Canada and Australia, the world’s topmost and third biggest producer of uranium respectively, have so far refused to engage in nuclear trade with India citing domestic compulsions.
With the domestic supplies of uranium unable to keep pace with the demand, many of the nuclear reactors in India, till a few months ago, were forced to run at half their capacities. Sources in the Department of Atomic Energy say, that “multi-sourcing” was at the heart of India’s strategy of obtaining enough nuclear fuel for its existing and rapidly expanding nuclear power generation capacity. It was important for India’s nuclear power sector to remain insulated from the whims of individual nations, they said.
Meanwhile, an Indian proposal to have an airbase in Mongolia to increase its strategic outreach in the Central Asian region appears to have been shelved amid concerns that it could exacerbate tensions with China.
Mooted during the visit of the then Mongolian Prime Minister. Enkhbayar in January 2004, the idea elicited a positive response in Mongolia, a country with which India has been rapidly developing ties. Besides providing enhanced reach to the IAF, the Mongolian base was seen as giving India strategic leverage vis-à-vis China. Resource-rich Central Asia is also important for India to secure its energy supplies. But the proposed airbase did not figure during the just ended four-day visit of the Mongolian President to India.
