Monday, March 6 2006 10:29 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Sydney: As Australian Premier John Howard began his four-day visit to India, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was today(Mar 6,2006) quoted as saying that he would ask him to back the Indo-US nuclear deal and lift the ban on sale of Uranium to New Delhi.



"I very much hope Australia, as a member of the Nuclear Suppliers' Group, would endorse what I and US President George W Bush have worked out. This is an arrangement which helps the cause of nuclear non-proliferation. India has an impeccable record of not entering into any unauthorised arms proliferation," Singh said in an interview to the 'The Australian' newspaper.

"I hope Australia will be an important partner in this. We are short of uranium. We need to import uranium and our needs will increase in years to come," the Prime Minister said adding he would like to buy uranium from Australia to feed his country's 'growing appetite' for the raw material.

Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer had last week ruled out changing their policy of not selling uranium to India as it has refused to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

But in an interview before leaving Sydney for New Delhi yesterday, Howard was more accommodating as he said Australia would 'study' the deal and 'if there are things that should additionally be done that are in Australia's interests then we'll do them.'