Australia on Thursday said it is determined to conclude as soon as possible a civil nuclear deal signed with India last year, though a lobby has been working in this country against the agreement.
Australia on Thursday said it is determined to conclude as soon as possible a civil nuclear deal signed with India last year, though a lobby has been working in this country against the agreement.
"There is a lobby working on nuclear issues in Australia. The government has determined that we will conclude this agreement as soon as possible," Foreign Minister Julie Bishop said.
"It will be going through joint standing committee on treaty. I expect they will hand down a report in due course and once that report has been considered by the government we can conclude it. It will be this year I imagine," she told visiting Indian journalists here in the Australian capital.
She said Australia is determined to take forward the civil nuclear agreement it signed with India last year. Australia's uranium reserves are the world's largest, with 23 per cent of the total.
Bishop had earlier said that Australia was a power house and wanted to export energy to the world. She had, however, said her country will extend the facility to India under strict controls.
The Australia-India Nuclear Cooperation Agreement signed in September last year will provide a framework for greater cooperation between both the countries on a broad range of nuclear-related areas, such as nuclear safety, production of radioisotopes and regulatory and technological advances in the nuclear fuel cycle.
Bishop also expressed confidence in Australia signing the Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement (CECA) with India by the end of this year as agreed by the prime ministers of the two countries.
Dismissing the notion that the reported slowdown in China is pushing her country towards a bigger economic relationship with India, she said the world's second-largest country in terms of population is always "in focus" on various issues.
"Last year was an important year for the bilateral relations. We had a visit from Prime Minister (Narendra) Modi. That was an opportunity for us to reaffirm our commitment to our economic ties and the comprehensive economic cooperation agreement is important to us.
"I think that will be the next milestone in the relationship. So we are hoping that (the CECA) can be concluded by the end of this year," Bishop said.
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