New Delhi, Dec 6 (IANS) India and Russia will sign Monday an umbrella agreement for expanding civil nuclear cooperation that will give New Delhi the right to reprocess spent fuel, taking the pact “far beyond the 123 agreement” inked with the US, a top official said here Sunday.
The official’s comments came as Prime Minister Manmohan Singh arrived in Moscow on a three-day visit that is expected to take the time-tested strategic partnership between the two countries to another level in “an evolving international situation.”

The inter-governmental umbrella agreement on peaceful uses of nuclear energy will provide a comprehensive framework for expanding the existing civil nuclear cooperation between the two countries. Last year, the two sides signed a pact for Russia building four additional reactors at Kudankulam in the southern state of Tamil Nadu.

The agreement will be an advance on the 123 civil nuclear cooperation agreement signed between India and the US last year by granting India the right to reprocess spent fuel and facilitating the transfer of the sensitive enrichment and reprocessing technologies, official sources said.

Recently, India announced the allocation of one more site at Haripur in West Bengal for nuclear reactors supplied by Russia.

Russia, one of the earliest supporters for India re-joining the global nuclear trade, had supported consensus for New Delhi in the Nuclear Suppliers Group.

India and the US are in the final stages of concluding a reprocessing pact. The pact was expected to be signed during Manmohan Singh’s visit to Washington last month, but could not materialise due to “minor problems” relating to the language of the draft agreement.