India/Russia

Medvedev signs nuclear energy, space deals

Article published on the 2008-12-05 Latest update 2008-12-05 15:02 TU

Singh (L) welcomes Medvedev
(Photo: Reuters)

On a visit Russia's President Dmitry Medvedev has signed major money-making deals with traditional ally and partner India. Russia has become the third country to sign an an atomic energy agreement with India since the Nuclear Suppliers Group dropped a ban in September. Medvedev also pledged support for India's fight against political violence in the wake of the Mumbai attacks.

The accords cover the building of four new nuclear reactors in Kudankulam, in the southern state of Tamil Nadu. Moscow is already building two 1,000-megawatt light water reactors at the site and two more may follow, although officials say it is too early to comment on the possibility.

Another agreement committed Moscow to sending an Indian cosmonaut into space by 2013 and to launch a  manned Indian spacecraft in 2015.

And there was a deal to sell India 80 military helicopters.

Ties between Moscow and Delhi date back to the Soviet Union. Russia supplies 70 per cent of Indian military equipment. But since the end of the Nuclear Suppliers Group ban, introduced after India started testing nuclear bombs, France and the US have signed co-operation pacts with the energy-hungry developing economy.

"I think it just means that India is dealing with all sides and giving no preference to any particular side," says Bharat Karnad, an analyst at the Centre for Policy Research in Delhi.

"That’s always been the case - not just a balancing act in terms of foreign policy but also in economic policy," he told RFI. "They don’t want to put all our eggs in one basket, as the idiom goes."

As well as meeting Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Medvedev laid a wreath at the memorial to independence leader Mahatma Gandhi and expressed his solidarity with Delhi after the Mumbai attacks.

"The terrorist threat is not over for our country," he said in an interview with Indian public television. "We are ready to have co-operation in all areas with the aim of preventing such terror attacks."

The Russian President has postponed a visit to Italy this weekend so that he can return immediately to Moscow following the death of the head of the Russian Orthodox Church.