NEW DELHI: India and Australia sealed the long-awaited nuclear energy deal on Friday even as Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott said he wanted first-rank relations with India.Abbott met Prime Minister Narendra Modi in New Delhi and finalized the deal to allow the export of uranium to India.

Abbott said India and Australia were bound by "strongly convergent" trade and strategic interests on the last day of his visit, which culminated with the deal to supply uranium to the energy-hungry country.

During the meeting, PM Abbott gifted a 'Nehru jacket' made of Australian wool to PM Modi, who in return presented him a copy of the Gita. India and Australia kick-started negotiations on uranium sales in 2012 after Canberra lifted a long-time ban on exporting the valuable ore to Delhi to meet its ambitious nuclear energy programme.

Australia, the world's third biggest uranium producer, had previously ruled out such exports to nuclear-armed India because it has not signed the global non-proliferation treaty.

Both India and Pakistan are nuclear-armed, and along with Israel and North Korea are the only countries not signed up to the non-proliferation treaty to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons.

Narendra Modi and Tony Abbott



But Abbott said on Thursday that he was assured of India's commitment to peaceful power generation.

"India has an absolutely impeccable non-proliferation record and India has been a model international citizen," he told reporters in Mumbai.

Australia's decision to overturn its ban followed a landmark US agreement in 2008 to support India's civilian nuclear programme.

India is struggling to produce enough power to meet rising demand amid its 1.2-billion strong population as its economy and vast middle-class expand. Nearly 400 million still without access to electricity, according to the World Bank, and crippling power cuts are common.

The two PMs at the Rashtrapati Bhavan (EPA Photo)

The agreement will allow India to ramp up plans for more nuclear power stations, with only 20 small plants at present and a heavy dependency on coal.

Asked about India's management of its nuclear power industry and safety standards, Abbott said it was "not our job to tell India how to conduct its internal affairs".

"Our job is to try to ensure we act in accordance with our own standards of decency and that's what we intend to do," he said, adding that India's "standards are improving all the time".

Australia PM receives the guard of honour at Rashtrapati Bhavan (TOI pic by Anindya Chattopadhyay)