(Top) An aerial view of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station; Nirupama Rao at an event in New Delhi on Wednesday. File picture and PTI

New Delhi, April 6: Foreign secretary Nirupama Rao will be in Tokyo later this week to discuss the proposed India-Japan civil nuclear agreement, which has been in the works for more than a year but over which the Fukushima nuclear accident now threatens to cast a shadow.

The ministry of external affairs today said Rao would be in Japan on a two-day visit starting Friday “for talks on bilateral, regional and global issues”. She will meet Japanese vice-foreign minister Kenichiro Sasae and deputy foreign minister Koro Bessho.

Sources said discussions on the nuclear deal would feature prominently in her meetings.

Rao’s visit comes after the earthquake and tsunami last month triggered a crisis at the Fukushima nuclear reactors.

New Delhi is looking to buy Japanese nuclear reactors for its plants. The two sides have had a couple of rounds of talks as part of their energy dialogue but Tokyo is taking its time to finalise the deal.

A victim of the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan has traditionally been reluctant to do nuclear commerce with countries like India that are not signatories to the Nuclear non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT).

But India’s commitment to exercise moratorium on nuclear testing, its past record, and pressure from Japanese companies unwilling to lose out on lucrative contracts from India had softened Tokyo enough for it to work on a framework that will allow private Japanese companies to secure overseas contracts to build civil nuclear plants.

New Delhi needs an agreement with Japan so that Hitachi, Toshiba and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries can partner American and French companies that will build nuclear power plants in India.

Two of the biggest US companies that plan to build nuclear power plants in India — GE Energy and Westinghouse Electric Co — have Japanese links.

GE Energy and Hitachi had struck a 60:40 international joint venture for nuclear energy in 2006. The same year, Toshiba bought Westinghouse for $4 billion. French firm Areva has a 30 per cent stake in Mitsubishi for overseas operations.

Last year, Japan had paved the way for high-technology transfers by removing several Indian companies and government institutions from a list of banned entities.

But New Delhi now fears that Fukushima may have increased the Japanese establishment’s misgivings about signing the civil nuclear agreement — a prospect that could hurt India’s ambitious civil nuclear energy plan and even its growth story.

The Fukushima crisis would definitely strengthen Japan’s anti-nuclear power lobby that had last year held demonstrations against Tokyo signing the deal, the sources said.

New Delhi hopes to suss out Japanese mood on the deal during foreign secretary Rao’s visit and take necessary remedial measures in case of bad news from Tokyo.

In good news for proponents of civil nuclear energy in New Delhi, agencies today quoted US assistant secretary of state Robert Blake as saying the radiation crisis in Japan’s quake-hit Fukushima nuclear power plant may not impact the India-US nuclear deal.

The US continues “to work very closely with our Indian friends to carry out the civil nuclear deal and I think they (India) remain committed to it”, he said.