Kudankulam row: No reason not to believe PM, says Russian diplomat

Agreeing with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's remarks blaming foreign NGOs for the protests against Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant, a Russian envoy on Sunday hoped people would understand the need for it to be commissioned very soon.

"We don't have any reason not to believe to what the Prime Minister of India has said. But, we hope that this kind of environment will be stopped and the people here in India understand that the nuclear power plant in Kudankulam should be commissioned very soon," Nikolay A Listopadov, Consul General for Russian Federation for southern India told reporters in Chennai.

He was responding to a question on the Prime Minister's recent remarks made in an interview to the US-based 'Science' journal that "The atomic energy programme has gone into difficulties because these NGOs, mostly I think based in the US, don't appreciate the need for our country to increase the energy supply."

Earlier, Listopadov cast his vote in the Presidential polls for the Russian Federation along with other diplomats at the Consulate General here.

Russian Ambassador Alexander Kadakin had last week said, "We have been suspecting this all along. I was open to even saying this because it was very strange that six months after the Fukushima tragedy, all of a sudden those protesters raised their voice."