Marseille [France], February 12 (ANI): Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Emmanuel Macron visited the site of the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor [ITER] in Cadarache on Wednesday.

According to a release by Ministry of External Affairs, the leaders were welcomed by Director General, ITER. This was the first visit by any Head of State or Head of Government to ITER - one of the most ambitious fusion energy projects in the world today.

During the visit, the leaders appreciated the progress of ITER, including the assembly of the world's largest Tokamak, where ultimately 500 MW of fusion power will be produced by creating, containing and controlling burning plasma. The leaders also appreciated the dedication of the ITER engineers and scientists working on the project, the release stated.

India is among the seven ITER members contributing to the project over the last two decades. Around 200 Indian scientists and associates, as well as notable industry players such as L&T, Inox India, TCS, TCE, HCL Technologies, among others, are engaged in the ITER project.

Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri on Wednesday informed that both countries held significant discussion relating to their strategic partnership in the field of civil nuclear energy.

PM Modi and Macron welcomed the signing of a letter of intent on Small Modular Reactor (SMR) and Advanced Modular Reactor (AMR) and the Implementing Agreement between India's GCNEP, DAE and France's INSTN, CEA for cooperation in the training and education of nuclear professionals, according to a joint statement on the Prime Minister's visit.

In his media briefing, Foreign Secretary Misri said, 'We've been discussing, for instance, cooperation in the Jaitapur nuclear power project for some time. It has multiple aspects related to technology, finance, also to issues related to civil liability. The area of SMRs and AMRs has come up in more recent times but has progressed quite quickly. And the reason that you see a letter of intent is because both countries feel that there are real possibilities in taking this forward.'

'So the idea on this particular front is to start cooperation because this is a technology that is still in its initial stages, even in countries which are, which have been working on it for some time. Therefore we intend to be able to cooperate in co-designing the reactors, co-developing them and co-producing them, we feel this will allow us to tackle complications faced in other conventional projects,' Misri said.

Both countries also renewed the MoU between the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE), India and the Commissariat a l'Energie Atomique et aux Energies Alternatives of France (CAE), France, concerning cooperation with the Global Center for Nuclear Energy Partnership (GCNEP). (ANI)