Skip to main content

Sarkozy update: Military and Nuclear ties with India


Regular readers will recall my treatment of the Franco-Chinese relationship that emerged under Jaques Chirac and continues full throttle with Nicholas Sarkozy at the helm.

Today Sarkozy is in India, cementing a deal to bring India into compliance with the International Atomic Energy Agency (making the country eligible to purchase fuel and reactor technology more freely) and to strengthen France's existing position as a military supplier to India.

From Al-Jazeera:

France and India have completed negotiations on a civilian nuclear technology agreement, the two leaders said, but Sarkozy said the deal depends on India concluding its own agreement on nuclear safeguards with the IAEA.

India's booming economy is desperate for energy, and such deals would allow the country to buy nuclear fuels and reactors.

They would also bring India into the nuclear mainstream after decades of its isolation due to its refusal to sign non-proliferation treaties and its testing of nuclear weapons....

....

Also on Friday, India and France agreed to strengthen military ties and go beyond a "buyer-seller relationship," Singh said on Friday.

"I think it is very important that India and France should cooperate, share information and intelligence gathering for defence of the values which are dear to both our countries," he said.

The two sides had earlier signed an agreement on protecting classified defence information, which Singh said "reaffirmed our strong mutual desire to further strengthen our strategic partnership."

"This partnership is longstanding and rests on shared values and similar approaches to regional and global issues," the prime minister said during the joint news conference

"A global fight against terrorism is essential to protect open, democratic and multi-cultural societies like our two countries."

France has been hoping to use the state visit to revitalise relations with India, a country ranked as the biggest weapons buyer among emerging nations.

It is expected to spend an estimated $30 billion on defence purchases over the next five years.

France was the second largest arms supplier to India after Russia but has now been overtaken by Israel.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Obligatory Libertarian Tax Day Post

The most disturbing factoid that I learned on Tax Day was that the average American must now spend a full twenty-four hours filling out tax forms. That's three work days. Or, think of it this way: if you had to put in two hours per night after dinner to finish your taxes, that's two weeks (with Sundays off). I saw a talking head economics professor on some Philly TV channel pontificating about how Americans procrastinate. He was laughing. The IRS guy they interviewed actually said, "Tick, tick, tick." You have to wonder if Governor Ruth Ann Minner and her cohorts put in twenty-four hours pondering whether or not to give Kraft Foods $708,000 of our State taxes while demanding that school districts return $8-10 million each?
1 comment
Read more

New Warfare: I started my posts with a discussion.....

.....on Unrestricted warfare . The US Air force Institute for National Security Studies have developed a reasonable systems approach to deter non-state violent actors who they label as NSVA's. It is an exceptionally important report if we want to deter violent extremism and other potential violent actors that could threaten this nation and its security. It is THE report our political officials should be listening to to shape policy so that we do not become excessive in using force against those who do not agree with policy and dispute it with reason and normal non-violent civil disobedience. This report, should be carefully read by everyone really concerned with protecting civil liberties while deterring violent terrorism and I recommend if you are a professional you send your recommendations via e-mail at the link above so that either 1.) additional safeguards to civil liberties are included, or 2.) additional viable strategies can be used. Finally, one can only hope that politici...
Post a Comment
Read more

More of This, Please

Or perhaps I should say, "Less of this one, please." Or how about just, "None of them. Ever again. Please....For the Love of God." Sunshine State Poll: Grayson In Trouble The latest Sunshine State/VSS poll shows controversial Democratic incumbent Alan Grayson trailing former state Senator Dan Webster by seven points, 43 percent to 36 percent. A majority of respondents -- 51 percent -- disapprove of the job that Grayson is doing. Independents have an unfavorable view of him as well, by a 36/47 margin. Grayson has ignored the conventional wisdom that a freshman should be a quiet member who carefully tends to the home fires. The latest controversy involves his " Taliban Dan " advertisement, where he explicitly compares his opponent to the Taliban, and shows a clip of Webster paraphrasing Ephesians 5:22 -- "wives, submit to your husbands." An unedited version of the clip shows that Webster was actually suggesting that husba...
70 comments
Read more