US denies objections to India’s N-programme

The US on Saturday stressed that it has “no objection to India’s nuclear programme” after prime minister said “US based NGO’s” were funding anti-nuclear protests in India.

“The Government of US has certainly no objection with regard to nuclear programmes. The US is also involved in potential participation in the civilian nuclear programme. Indo-US relationship is growing in every sense at all levels. Relationship has been cordial. We want American companies to be here,” US embassy charge d’Affaires Peter Burleigh said on the sidelines of an event in Guwahati.

In an interview to Science magazine, the prime minister had said that the Kudankulam nuclear power plant site had run into problems because “these NGOs mostly, I think, based in the US, don’t appreciate the need for our country to increase energy. The local NGO-led protests have stalled the commissioning of two 1000 MW nuclear reactors.”

It was the Russians who are building nuclear plants in Kudankulam, who had first sought to draw attention to then unseen “foreign hand” last year. The Russian envoy had issued statements raising suspicion as to how after six months of Fukushima tragedy suddenly protests have erupted at Kudankulam.

After the PM’s interview was published, the Russian envoy to India on Friday said, “We have been suspecting it all along and I was openly saying this as it was quite strange that six months after the Fukushima tragedy, all the protesters decided to wake up and raise their voice against the most secure, the best, the safest nuclear station in the world.”