France ‘pleading’ with IAEA and NSG for India

He said in New Delhi that an end to India’s isolation in the field would be good for the country as well as the world.

“We believe strongly that an agreement between India and the IAEA leading to a special case presented to the NSG, which will allow India to cooperate in the civilian nuclear area with foreign countries, is a good thing for India and a good thing for the world,” Bonnafant said.

He said France ‘very strongly’ favours civil nuclear cooperation with India and is waiting for New Delhi to sign the Safeguards Agreement with IAEA and exemption from NSG.

“We are ready to sign the agreement with India whenever there is an agreement with IAEA, approved by the (IAEA) Board of Governors and exemption from NSG,” the Ambassador said.

France is ‘pleading’ for exemption to India in IAEA and among the NSG members, Bonnafont said.

A bilateral civil nuclear agreement between France and India, on the lines of the Indo-US civil nuclear deal, is almost ready for signature by the two sides.

When referred to the political difficulties faced by the Manmohan Singh dispensation on the nuclear issue because of the Left opposition, Bonnafant refused to comment, saying it was for the government here to take a decision.

Four Left parties, which provide crucial outside support to the UPA government, has warned against signing agreement with IAEA as part of implementation of the Indo-US nuclear deal.

“There is a moment when the decision is in the hand of the Government of India and we have nothing to say except that it will be possible for India to go ahead and we support it,” the French envoy said.

“We have nothing to say except that it will be possible for India to go ahead and we support it… There is a part of the decision, which is sovereign and belongs to India itself. We hope it will be possible,” he said.

France, which meets 80 per cent of its energy needs through nuclear power, has always maintained that India should be brought into the international nuclear mainstream.

India has apprised France about details of the Safeguards Agreement reached with the IAEA. Paris is understood to be ‘comfortable’ with that pact, feeling that it is in tune with its own proposed bilateral deal with New Delhi on the lines of the Indo-US agreement.

A prominent French nuclear power company has already surveyed potential sites for setting up atomic power plants in India.