US committed to pursue nuclear cooperation with India: Blake

Beijing, Mar 19: The US has said that its civil nuclear cooperation with India will go ahead despite radiation crisis in Japan.

"....We remain very much committed to pursuing civil nuclear cooperation with India. I think it's too early to try to make any judgments about what kind of impact the disaster in Japan is going to have on the civil nuclear industry worldwide," Robert Blake, US Assistant Secretary for South and Central Asian Affairs, told media after talks with Chinese leaders here.

But he cautioned that the impact of the nuclear disaster would have to be studies and looked at. To a question whether US would reconsider its decision to have civil nuclear energy cooperation with India in the aftermath of Japanese crisis, he replied with an emphatic no.

Speaking about China's assistance to build new nuclear plants in Pakistan, Blake said they are "inconsistent" with its commitment to Nuclear Suppliers Group.

"We expect China to abide by the commitments that it made when it joined the Nuclear Suppliers Group in 2004, and in particular we think the construction of new nuclear reactors such as the Chashma 3 and 4 would be inconsistent with those commitments. That remains our longstanding position," he said answering a question.

US and other NSG countries say that China which assisted Pakistan in building Chashma one and two reactors has not notified its plans to build additional reactors when it joined NSG in 2004, which according to rules of the apex nuclear grouping was a mandatory requirement.

Besides two additional reactors, China last year also announced plans to build mega one gigawatt nuclear reactor for Pakistan.

PTI