TORONTO - Stephen Harper says he believes India’s Cold War duplicity has been consigned to history and that the Asian economic powerhouse won’t use Canadian uranium to build nuclear bombs.
The prime minister offered that assurance as he gave India its much coveted civilian nuclear co-operation deal with Canada on Sunday, ending decades of chill over its acquisition of a nuclear bomb using Canadian nuclear reactor technology a generation ago.
Harper and visiting Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh announced the deal that would allow for uranium exports to India, and technological exchanges that could be worth billions to the Canadian nuclear industry.
Harper said the deal represented a new era in Canadian-Indian relations.
“We cannot live as a country in the 1970s. We are living in very different realities today,” Harper said.
The issue has been a source of friction between the two countries since India used Canadian nuclear reactor technology to build a nuclear bomb.
Canada sold one of its reactors to India, which subsequently used the technology to develop a nuclear arms program in the early 1970s, despite official promises to the contrary.
India is a country of growing importance, the prime minister said, as he sounded an upbeat note on moving Canada closer to one of the world’s fastest growing economies.
“It shares with us not just key values, it shares with us key interests in the world and faces the same threats that we do," Harper added.
“We want to make sure as India develops its nuclear industry, that we are there and we are part of it because we have an important part to play and important opportunities.”
The deal calls for India to conform to safeguards of the UN watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Singh pledged India would play by the rules this time.
“There is absolutely no scope whatsoever of the nuclear materials and nuclear equipment being supplied to India being used for unintended purposes,” the Indian leader said.
Harper and Singh met before a gala dinner at a Toronto harbourfront hotel that was emceed by a Bollywood film star.
Analysts question whether India would use the deal to indirectly support its military nuclear program.
“If we sell them uranium, then India will be able to use more of its domestic uranium for its military program,” said Ernie Regehr, of the peace advocacy group Project Ploughshares.
“I think it goes without saying if India were to test (a nuclear bomb) again, all nuclear deals and export of nuclear material, including uranium would be immediately suspended.”
Harper welcomed Singh to Toronto after an intense 72 hours in the global spotlight, playing host to leaders of more than 30 countries and international institutions at the G8 and G20 summits.
Manmohan Agarwal, a senior visiting fellow with the Centre for International Governance Innovation in Waterloo, Ont., said the deal was a step towards improving economic relations between the two countries. Harper travelled to India and China last fall after being criticized for ignoring Asia’s two fast growing economies.
“For India it is a way of putting the past behind it and having a more significant relationship with Canada,” he said.
“It’s obviously a sign of the importance Canada is putting on the relationship.”