{"id":30252,"date":"2016-11-12T03:58:44","date_gmt":"2016-11-12T03:58:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/japan-india-sign-agreement-on-civil-nuclear-power\/"},"modified":"2016-11-12T03:58:40","modified_gmt":"2016-11-12T03:58:40","slug":"japan-india-sign-agreement-on-civil-nuclear-power","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/japan-india-sign-agreement-on-civil-nuclear-power\/","title":{"rendered":"Japan, India sign agreement on civil nuclear power"},"content":{"rendered":"

{Landmark agreement signed in Tokyo despite criticism from anti-nuclear groups citing threats to safety.}<\/p>\n

Japan has signed a controversial deal to sell civil nuclear power equipment and technology to I ndia, despite resistance from campaigners, as the two countries seek to boost business and security ties.<\/p>\n

The pact, signed on Friday in Tokyo by Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi , marked the first time Japan agreed to such a deal with a country that is not a member of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.<\/p>\n

The treaty bans nations other than the five permanent members of the UN Security Council from developing and possessing nuclear weapons.<\/p>\n

Critics in Japan, the victim of US atomic bombings in the final days of World War II, have previously raised concerns about a risk of the country’s technology being diverted to India’s nuclear weapons programme. <\/p>\n

Yet, the deal is limited to peaceful commercial use, and Tokyo cam terminate it if India conducts a nuclear test.<\/p>\n

The pact allows India to reprocess fuel and enrich uranium, though highly enriched uranium that can be used to make nuclear weapons is not permitted without written agreement by Japan.<\/p>\n

Abe and Modi insisted the agreement will contribute to peaceful use of clean energy.<\/p>\n

“This agreement sets a legal framework to assure that India acts responsibly for the peaceful uses of nuclear energy,” Abe said, adding that it gets India to effectively participate in the non-proliferation treaty framework.<\/p>\n

“It is also in line with Japan’s position to promote non-proliferation to create a world without nuclear weapons.” <\/p>\n

Abe’s pro-business government seeks to export nuclear power plants to counter shrinking sales at home since the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster, and has discussed similar deals with Vietnam and Turkey.<\/p>\n

Modi praised the signing as “a historic step in our engagement to build a clean energy partnership” that will help India to “combat the challenge of climate change”.<\/p>\n

Anti-nuclear groups denounced the agreement, citing threats to safety and regional peace and increased risk of proliferation.<\/p>\n

“There is no effective separation between India\u2019s nuclear energy programme and its weapons programme, and the Japanese government\u2019s agreement conditions are meaningless,” Shaun Burnie, a senior nuclear specialist at Greenpeace Japan, said in a statement . <\/p>\n

“Approving nuclear trade with India is a geo-strategic decision to support further nuclear weapons proliferation in Asia.”<\/p>\n

The women of Fukushima, an anti-nuclear lobbying group, have issued an appeal to Modi to visit the disaster area and see at first hand the consequences of nuclear power.<\/p>\n

“Nuclear power plants will not bring happiness to your citizens,” the group said in an open letter. <\/p>\n

“We who experienced the injury of the nuclear accident, we came to understand this through our own bodies and lives.”<\/p>\n

Energy-hungry India wants to increase nuclear power generation to support its strong economic growth. The country has signed similar nuclear agreements with France, Russia, Britain and the United States.<\/p>\n

\"Abe<\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

{Landmark agreement signed in Tokyo despite criticism from anti-nuclear groups citing threats to safety.} Japan has signed a controversial deal to sell civil nuclear power equipment and technology to I ndia, despite resistance from campaigners, as the two countries seek to boost business and security ties. The pact, signed on Friday in Tokyo by Japanese […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[101],"byline":[2474],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-30252","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-internationl","byline-al-jazeera"],"bylines":[{"id":2474,"name":"AL JAZEERA","slug":"al-jazeera","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"contributors":[{"id":2474,"name":"AL JAZEERA","slug":"al-jazeera","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30252","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30252"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30252\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30252"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30252"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30252"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=30252"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=30252"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}