Kazakhstan keen to expand civil nuke ties with India

Kazakhstan is keen to expand civil nuclear ties with India, its envoy here said Wednesday.

Ambassador Doulat Kuanyshev said the two strategic partners should look beyond and enhance ties in the nuclear sector, and let Kazakhstan's atomic power company Kazakhprom and Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited expand cooperation.

"We should look beyond. Kazakhstan is (among) main exporters of natural uranium in the world and India has the potential to increase its nuclear power capacity," Kuanyshev told reporters.

"Agreement between Kazakhprom and NPCIL is on and it is going quite successfully," he said.

He said the next scheduled delivery of fuel for India's nuclear power plants was next year and the process "I think will be till 2014".

Asked if Kazakhstan was ready to meet India's oil needs, if it reduces its fuel dependency on Iran in the wake of US and EU sanction, the envoy said there were "no specific discussions of these matters".