El Baradei: Nuke agreement with US will not affect India's foreign policy
IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency
New Delhi, Oct 13, IRNA
India-Foreign Policy-IAEA
The Chief of International Atomic Energy agency, (IAEA), Mohammad El Baradei has said that India-US nuclear deal will not affect India's foreign policy.
Responding to the queries of the media in the capital Friday evening, he said India has always pursued an independent foreign policy since Independence.
The IAEA Chief said the Safeguards Agreement with India can be worked out within weeks after the government decides to go ahead on the deal.
Replying to a question, he said the Nuclear Watchdog has already four such agreements with India and the future agreement will also sail through easily without any opposition.
Earlier, speaking at the Hindustan Times Leadership Summit here, he strongly favored the nuke deal to meet India's growing energy demands.
He said to sustain nine percent growth rate and to meet the challenges of the climate change, India needs clean nuclear energy with the state-of-the-art technology.
He said while the Western countries, mainly France gets 78 percent of their energy requirements from nuclear power, in India it is only two per cent and this needs to be enhanced.
Lauding the efforts made by New Delhi since the first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru for a nuclear weapons free world, the IAEA Chief said, any disarmament effort will not succeed without India being a central party to it.
Referring to the double standards of Nuclear Haves, Mohammed El- Baradei said, these countries rely on nuclear weapons for their own security but do not want others to have it.
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