Russia, Australia uranium deal in jeopardy
Mining Net News
RUSSIA has advised Australia not to back out of its multi-billion dollar uranium deal after the federal government said the agreement could be threatened following Russia’s recent dispute with Georgia.
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and former prime minister John Howard inked the uranium deal ahead of last year’s Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Summit in Sydney.
Russia is a signatory to the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and is one of the five nuclear powers recognised by that agreement, while Putin has previously said that Australia’s uranium would be for civilian power use only and not for the development of nuclear weapons.
However, Russia’s recent invasion into Georgia has caused concern among Labor MP’s with Foreign Minister Stephen Smith warning the government would take the dispute into account when ratifying the uranium agreement with Russia.
“When the government comes to consider ratification of the Civil Nuclear Cooperation Agreement with the Russian Federation, we will take into account not just the merits of the agreement, but events which have occurred in Georgia and ongoing events in Georgia and the state of Australia's bilateral relationship with the Russian Federation,” Smith told Parliament.
Chairman of Parliament’s treaties committee Kelvin Thomson said Putin may not honour the terms of the uranium deal.
“I don’t know if you’ve looked on the TV into Vladimir Putin's eyes — he is one tough son of a gun and I don't think that he cares about what we think,” Thomson said at the committee hearing in Canberra.
“I think that we could supply uranium to him and if he changed his mind about the uses to which he was going to put it, I don't think we'd have any effective comeback at all,” he said.
Meantime, Russia’s ambassador in Canberra Alexander Blokhin told Fairfax newspapers that Australia should not withdraw from the deal.
“If this agreement is not ratified, in that case we could regard it as an obviously politically biased decision, which could harm the economic interest of Australia as well,” Blokhin told Fairfax through an interpreter.
“We do not see any connection between the events in the Caucasus region and the uranium deal. These are completely separate things.”