Howard qualifies uranium sale offer

Australian Prime Minister John Howard appeared to contemplate a major departure from policy by agreeing to consider selling uranium to India if New Delhi gave convincing commitments about following global nuclear safeguards for its civilian atomic reactors, but qualified the offer following bitter criticism at home.

Days after India announced it would present a separation plan for its military and civilian nuclear reactors to enable the US Congress ratify the civilian nuclear agreement, Howard suggested Autralia might make a break from its policy of selling uranium only to those countries that have signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Australia has almost half of the world's uranium resources and India is painfully dependent on imported uranium for its nuclear power programme. The process of converting the plentiful thorium into the scarce uranium is a technology that India has not yet perfected.

"We do have a long-standing policy of only selling uranium to countries that are part of the NPT regime, but we will have a look at what the Americans have done and when we get a bit more information about that we'll further assess it," Howard said in Australia.

However, as the Green party tore into Howard back home, he fine-tuned his position after arriving in New Delhi.

"Australia does have large supplies of uranium ... and provided the rules are followed and the safeguards are met, we are willing to sell, but we have to be satisfied about safeguards," he told reporters shortly after arriving in New Delhi.

Australian Greens senator Christine Milne said Howard was following US President George W Bush in tearing up another major part of international law. "This is a major change," she said.

"Those of us who remember living through the years of the Cold War know what a nuclear arms race is all about. Howard talks constantly about global security and yet what he is doing is (to) facilitate BHP selling uranium to China and India (and) is making the world less safe."

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh made no bones about the fact that Australia would have a buyer for its uranium in India.

"I hope Australia will be an important partner in this. We are short of uranium. We need to import uranium and our needs will increase in years to come," he told "The Australian" newspaper in an interview.

Howard termed the India-US nuclear pact as a positive development and said Australia had a very positive attitude towards New Delhi.

"I welcome the fact that for the first time a lot of India's nuclear capacity is going to be subjected to international inspections; that's certainly a big step forward," he said.

Australia reacted angrily to India's nuclear tests of 1998 and Indian military officers in that country on training courses were given 24 hours to pack up and leave the country. It has since tempered its reaction.

Trade is high on the agenda of the Howard visit. Two-way trade between the countries is heavily weighted in Australia's favour. Total trade between the two countries in fiscal 2005 stood at been $4.3 billion. Of this, India's exports to Australia were $0.7 billion and imports worth $3.6 billion. The Trade & Economic Framework Agreement proposes to raise trade to $8 billion in two years.

But some Indian experts predict that figure could double if uranium entered the equation.

Announcing partnerships in biotechnology,energy and other sectors, Howard announced a $25 million aid to India over the next five years for bilateral collaboration through the strategic research fund and exchange scholarships.

The two countries would sign an MoU to foster research cooperation in biotechnology, Howard said, speaking at a function organised by CII, Ficci and Assocham. To facilitate tourism growth, he announced that Indian citizens would be allowed to seek tourist e-visas.