Ottawa--Canada's prime minister announced a breakthrough deal Wednesday to supply uranium to India, putting behind decades of discord over India's surreptitious use of Canadian technologies to build nuclear bombs.
The supply agreement was signed in Ottawa during a visit by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi -- the first Indian leader to visit Canada in 42 years.
Few details of the Can$350 million deal were immediately available, except that it would cover five years.
The uranium is to be sourced from the northern Saskatchewan mines of Cameco, the world's third-largest uranium producer, accountable for 14 percent of world production. It currently exports about Can$1 billion worth of uranium annually.
Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper said a nuclear cooperation agreement concluded in 2012 laid the groundwork for the two Commonwealth nations "to turn the page on what had been in our judgment an unnecessarily frosty relationship for too along."
The pact allows Canadian companies to export nuclear materials for peaceful uses, in accordance with Canada's nuclear non-proliferation policy.
India, which has tense relations with nuclear-armed rival Pakistan, had been subject to a global embargo since 1974 when it first staged an atomic weapons test.
It used plutonium from a Canadian reactor to start developing its nuclear arms program in the early 1970s.
Modi told a joint press conference with Harper the uranium procurement deal marks "a new era of bilateral cooperation (and)... trust and confidence in India."
AFP
