New Delhi
13 September 2005
An exploratory fact-finding mission will visit India to follow up
on the meeting between an Indian delegation with the countries participating in the
International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) project. The meeting took place
on Monday at Cadarache in France, where the ITER project is to be sited.
The meeting of the Indian team comprising officials from the Department of Atomic
Energy came during the 10th negotiations meeting for the ITER international fusion
energy R&D project in which delegations from China, European Union, Japan, Republic
of Korea, Russia and the United States participated.
"In a separate meeting, the ITER delegates had an informal exchange with a delegation
from India on India's interest in the possibility of participating in ITER. It was
subsequently agreed that, without any further commitment, an exploratory fact finding
mission would visit India to follow up this exchange for future consideration by the ITER
delegations," it was stated.
India had made a formal request for joining the ITER project on July 8 when the chairman
of Atomic Energy Commission, Dr Anil Kakodkar, wrote to Dr Achilleas Mitsos, director
general of research of the European Commission, who is based in Brussels. Dr kakodkar
is also secretary of the Department of Atomic Energy.
Dr Kakodkar had then requested a meeting with ITER partners to "enable parties to the
ITER negotiations to appreciate India's capacity to contribute to ITER and to assist us to
understand better implications of pur possible participation". He had also cited India's
track record of completing projects including experimental tokamak devices like ADITYA
and SST 1.
Monday's meeting of ITER members was the first negotiations meeting following the
ministerial meeting in Moscow on June 28 this year, in which a common understanding
on the site selection was reached. All delegations have since reiterated their intention to
proceed together with the construction of ITER at the earliest date.
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