Tuesday, 4 September, 2007

ABC News Online

Foreign Affairs Minister Alexander Downer says a deal to sell Australian uranium to Russia is likely to be signed at this week's APEC summit.

The agreement would allow Russia to use Australian uranium in its civilian nuclear reactors, and is expected to be signed by the Russian President Vladimir Putin during his visit to Sydney.

Mr Downer has told Sky News that Russia would not risk jeopardising the deal by breaking the conditons.

"My view is you can put in place a good safeguards arrangement with Russia," he said.

"Russia would have absolutely no interest in breaching a safeguards agreement and creating a massive diplomatic confrontation, not just with Australia but with most of the western world over something like that," he said.

Australia has already agreed to sell uranium to India.

But while Australia is selling uranium abroad, Mr Downer says Australia would never accept nuclear waste from other countries.

"Nobody in the Government has ever suggested it. To the best of my knowledge, I don't think any Government has ever suggested it to us, but if they ever do, we'll certainly rule it out and certainly reject it," he said.

"We've never said that we would consider taking nuclear waste back to Australia, what we've said it that we will export uranium."

But the Greens say the Federal Government would not be able to adequately keep track of any Australian uranium which would be sold to Russia under the proposed new agreement.

Prime Minister John Howard backed Mr Downer and was not willing to comment on further uranium rumours.

"I'm not going to speculate on all the stuff in the papers on deals with different countries," Howard told Sky News.

"If there are any arrangements announced, then I'm going to explain them in detail when those arrangements are announced."

Greens Senator Christine Milne has told a conference on Russia that the Government would have no way of knowing whether the uranium is being used for military purposes or sold onto other countries.

"If you have no freedom of the press, and no NGOs and no foreign NGOs allowed to operate in society, then you will not know what is going on at any of those facilities, nor will you know about the environmental consequences," she said.