Indian PM's Russia visit means more than defense, nuclear pacts

Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh Tuesday wrapped up his three-day Russia visit, during which the two countries inked six major defense and nuclear deals including a crucial agreement on the use and cooperation of atomic energy.

However, political analysts claim that the Indian PM's visit is not only about the defense and nuclear pacts, but assumes significance in terms of Russia's role in thwarting terrorism, particularly that emanating from South Asia, as well as economics and the growing trade relations between the two countries.

Moreover, now that India has established a good rapport with the United States, it wants Russia also as its natural ally not only to fight terrorism but to maintain a good balance in world power.

"Singh's visit also assumes significance as it wants Russia as its ally in its fight on terror just like the United States. So, all is to create a world balance, even though no formal agreement has been signed in this regard," said political analyst Ajay Singh.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev told Singh that there's a common threat that India and Russia face, during their talks in the Kremlin. "We should consolidate our anti-terror base. We will provide concrete help in anti-terror activities," he said after the summit meeting.

In fact, the agreements, signed between Singh and Medvedev at Kremlin, included inking a path breaking agreement for expanding civil nuclear cooperation between the two countries that goes "far beyond even the 123 agreement" inked by India with the United States.

The civil nuclear deal signed between the two countries commits Russia to transfer of enrichment and reprocessing technologies to India. It also ensures uninterrupted uranium fuel supplies from Russia to nuclear reactors in India.

"The agreement expands civil nuclear cooperation between India and Russia beyond just supplies of nuclear reactors, to cover research and development and an entire gamut of issues in nuclear cooperation," the Indian prime minister told the media after the signing of the agreements.

According to political analyst Prof S.K. Gupta, Russia's state-owned nuclear power firm Rosatom is to build up to 20 nuclear power units in India in all, including four to six in the eastern state of West Bengal, and it is a kind of trade deals worth tens of billions of dollars.

"This is very important in strengthening the relations between the two countries, particularly given the new friendship forged between India and the U.S. in the aftermath of the Indo-U.S. nuclear deal when President George W. Bush was in office," he said.

Apart from the defense deals, the visit assumes significance in trade of other areas given that Russia has been selling to India power plant and other equipment, fertilizers, chemical products, copper, nickel, plastic goods and wheat, while New Delhi's investment in Russia -- mainly in the oil and gas industry, banking and information technology -- is more than 820 million U.S. dollars in the first half of this year.

During his visit to India last year, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Zhukov said that the two countries plan to increase trade to 10 billion U.S. dollars by 2010 and diversify economic cooperation.

"We are not only aiming to boost the figures measuring cooperation, raising trade to 10 billion U.S. dollars by 2010, but we also want our cooperation to reach a modern level, by expanding investment and science and research ties," he had said.

Source: Xinhua