Indian Leader Discusses U.S. Nuclear Deal with EU

Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh traveled to Finland this week to seek support from the European Union for New Delhi’s nuclear deal with the United States, the Press Trust of India reported (see GSN, Oct. 2).

The European Union has not decided yet whether to support the plan, in which India would open its civilian nuclear facilities to international monitoring in exchange for access to U.S. nuclear material and technology.

“We don’t yet have EU’s position on the U.S.-India nuclear cooperation,” Finnish Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen, whose country holds the rotating EU chairmanship, said yesterday at a press conference with Singh.  “We are trying to get EU’s position.”

Vanhanen said he understood India’s growing need for energy that could be produced by nuclear plants.

“Every country has the right to decide which kind of energy to use,” he said.  “I hope India could take part in all those international agreements which we have in the field of nuclear energy” (Press Trust of India/BBC Monitoring, Oct. 12).

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