Australia keen to supply uranium to India

NEW DELHI: Australia is working to ensure uranium supply to India after reversing its policy of not selling uranium to New Delhi.

Australian Foreign Minister Bob Carr told this to Union External Affairs Minister SM Krishna during their talks on the sidelines of the ASEAN Ministerial meeting.

Ministry of External Affairs Spokesperson Syed Akbaruddin said, “As you are aware, Labor party had earlier decided to reverse its policy and supply uranium to India. Mr Carr informed the External Affairs Minister that they are in the process of working out internal arrangements which will enable them to give effect to this policy of the Labor Party and as a government they will finalise this (arrangement) and come to India shortly with the draft,".

Krishna has welcomed the move and informed his Australian counterpart that he was looking forward to Canberra adopting steps in this regard.

During December last year, Australia's ruling Labor led by Prime Minister Julia Gillard gave nod to the decision to export Australian uranium to India. Reports suggest that Australia has the world's largest uranium reserves and its ores are of superior quality.

Presently, Australia exports uranium to China, Japan, Taiwan and the US.