KEY POINTS:
CANBERRA - Australia and Russia will sign a deal allowing mining companies to export Australian uranium to Russia for its domestic use, Foreign Minister Alexander Downer says.
"The deal will be signed," Mr Downer told ABC Radio today.
Russian President Vladimir Putin arrived in Sydney this morning to attend the Apec summit and hold meetings with Australian leaders.
Russia is a signatory to the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and is one of the five nuclear powers recognised by that agreement.
Mr Downer said the treaty provides safeguards that prevent Russia from using uranium for military use or selling it on to third parties.
"The Russian nuclear power industry is completely under international atomic energy agency safeguards in the way that America's is or France's or whoever else we may sell uranium to."
Mr Downer said if any country, including Russia, was to breach the treaty, the sense of international outrage would be "simply enormous".
"To suggest that Russia ... would breach a treaty of that importance with a a country like Australia is just not the real world," he said.
"I don't think for a minute that Russia would do that, Russia is not some kind of a rogue state.
"This at the end of the day is an argument that you can't sell uranium to anybody and my view is that countries like Russia are going to build a lot of new civil nuclear power stations in the years ahead and we should be selling uranium to them subject to appropriate safeguards."
Mr Downer also revealed he had a special Australian gift for the Russian president - "a bottle of Grange Hermitage because he is a lover of red wine ... provided by Penfolds".
- AAP
