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DEPARTMENT OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS

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NEWS RELEASE NO. M/16 21 February 1972

AUSTRALIAN - JAPAN ATOMIC ENERGY AGREEMENT

The Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Nigel Bowen, and the

Minister for National Development, Mr R. W, Swartz announced that

Australia and Japan had today signed an Agreement for Co-operation

in the Peaceful Uses of Atomic Energy.

The Agreement opens the way to greater co-operation between

Australia and Japan, at the Governmental and the commercial level, in

the peaceful use of atomic energy. The Ministers said that the

Agreement would facilitate, notably through agreement on safeguards

procedures, the negotiations by private enterprises for the export of

uranium. In addition the Agreement provides a formal basis to '

facilitate future negotiations for collaboration in specific areas, of

research and commercial ventures. Provision is included in the

Agreement for international safeguards to verify that material transferred

from either country to the other is used only for peaceful purposes.

More generally, the Ministers noted, the Agreement is a further

tangible sign of the increasingly intimate relations between Australia

and Japan. The Agreement represents another important element in the

already close economic co-operation between Australia and Japan and

recognises the growing importance of nuclear power in modern industry.

Australia is conscious of Japan's vital interest in obtaining reliable

sources of supply for uranium and other raw materials and is convinced

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that this Agreement will be to the mutual benefit of both countriesÂ»

The Ministers announced that the text of the Agreement will

be tabled in Parliament as soon as possibleÂ»

