{"id":30,"date":"2009-03-18T11:08:27","date_gmt":"2009-03-18T00:08:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.australianuranium.com.au\/blog\/russia-wants-howards-deal\/"},"modified":"2009-03-18T11:08:27","modified_gmt":"2009-03-18T00:08:27","slug":"russia-wants-howards-deal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.australianuranium.com.au\/blog\/russia-wants-howards-deal\/","title":{"rendered":"Russia Wants Howard's Deal"},"content":{"rendered":"

Russia urges Australia to honour uranium deal<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

AAP<\/p>\n

Russia is urging Australia to honour a deal to sell uranium to the former Soviet state, saying nuclear cooperation will be “fruitful” for both nations.<\/p>\n

Sergey Mironov, chairman of the upper house of the Russian parliament, believes there is “no alternative” but for Australia and Russia to cooperate on the issue of nuclear energy.<\/p>\n

“In the field of peaceful uses of nuclear energy, I believe there is no alternative to this cooperation because it is fruitful for both Russia and Australia,” he said.<\/p>\n

The former Howard government struck a deal – estimated to be worth about $1 billion – with Moscow in 2006 to sell uranium to Russia on the proviso it be used for civilian purposes under strict safeguards.<\/p>\n

But the parliament’s treaties committee recommended in September last year the government delay the deal until Australia can be certain Russia will meet its obligations under the nuclear non-proliferation treaty.<\/p>\n

The Rudd government is yet to respond to the recommendation.<\/p>\n

Mr Mironov has had meetings with Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and Foreign Minister Stephen Smith during his two-day visit to Canberra but neither office was immediately available to comment on the discussions.<\/p>\n

In a lecture at Parliament House, the chairman of Russia’s Federation Council lent his support to Mr Rudd’s proposal for an Asia Pacific Community by 2020.<\/p>\n

While the regional response to the idea has been lukewarm so far, Mr Mironov was far more enthusiastic.<\/p>\n

“Russia is interested in this initiative undertaken by Kevin Rudd about setting up the Asia Pacific Community,” he said.<\/p>\n

The issue was canvassed during his meeting with the prime minister, whom Mr Mironov indicated was in “no rush” to proceed with the initiative.<\/p>\n

“Mr Rudd said that there is no rush in the schedule of the setting up of this organisation,” Mr Mironov said.<\/p>\n

He described the proposal as a good idea but believes it should concentrate on security and other matters and leave the regional forum for economics to the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) gathering.<\/p>\n

“This new entity would rather detail political problems and problems of security. Russia is considering thoroughly this initiative and our president will respond to this initiative in proper time.”<\/p>\n

“But I as a parliamentarian believe it is a good and positive initiative.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Russia urges Australia to honour uranium deal AAP Russia is urging Australia to honour a deal to sell uranium to the former Soviet state, saying nuclear cooperation will be “fruitful” for both nations. Sergey Mironov, chairman of the upper house of the Russian parliament, believes there is “no alternative” but for Australia and Russia to … Continue reading “Russia Wants Howard's Deal”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.australianuranium.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.australianuranium.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.australianuranium.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.australianuranium.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.australianuranium.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.australianuranium.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.australianuranium.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.australianuranium.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.australianuranium.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}