News
Friday, June 25, 2010
China firms join Pak nuclear push* China says both countries working in spirit of equality and mutual benefit
BEIJING: Chinese companies this month quietly signed a contract to cooperate in building two nuclear reactors at Pakistan’s Chashma atomic complex, advancing a controversial project that has worried the US and India.
The China Nuclear Industry Fifth Construction Company (CNIFCC) and the CNNC China Zhongyuan Engineering Corp, which specialises in foreign nuclear projects, agreed to work together on the third and fourth plants at the Chashma complex, according to a Chinese-language announcement on the website of the Construction Company cnfc.net.cn. The deal, signed in Shanghai on June 8, confirmed that the long-running plans about Chinese help in expanding Chashma are moving forward, despite misgivings in the region and beyond about security and proliferation risks in troubled Pakistan. A Pakistani government official said there was nothing new in the agreement and that it was part of an ongoing cooperation with China in the peaceful use of nuclear energy. Mounting signs that China will proceed with the reactor project in Punjab have stirred international misgivings, especially in neighbouring India and the US.
Separately, the spokesman of the Chinese foreign ministry again stressed that China and Pakistan were working in the spirit of equality and mutual benefit. “We have been cooperating in this spirit,” said Qin Gang, spokesperson of the Chinese Foreign Ministry while responding to a question on the provision of two civil nuclear energy reactors to Pakistan. agencies
Courtesy www.dailytimes.com.pk