“Whatever we had to get, we have got it”, 83-year-old Sinha said.
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Not just China, but four other countries in the 48 member NSG group raised the NPT issue which proved to be a stumbling block for India which made a bid to enter the elite Nuclear Suppliers Group.
The main bone of contention is that India is not a signatory of the Non Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which is one of the criteria for NSG membership.
The Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) met this week in Seoul, but China said it would not bend the rules and allow India membership as it had not signed the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), the main global arms control pact.
“But bearing in mind that India has an impeccable record of a country that has never been a source of proliferation of nuclear technologies we might support it”, Lavrov said.
“We were able to end discussion this week and we have a clear path forward for India to become a full member by the end of the year”, the official asserted.
“We have both agreed to support each other for our respective bids for the non-permanent membership of the UNSC”, Prime Minister Modi said while delivering the joint statement with the Swiss President. Swarup also thanked the member countries who supported India’s membership to the group, and expressed gratitude for the “overwhelming number of those who took the floor supported India’s membership and appraised India’s application positively”. The NPT recognises only five countries – the US, Russia, the UK, France and China – as nuclear weapon states.
Modi discusses NSG bid with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Tashkent.
Chavan, who assisted Dr Manmohan Singh in the nuclear deal with the United States, compared this NSG plenary’s slap to India with its plenary back in 2008 agreeing not only to the unconditional waiver to India but also without any pre-conditions.
China also clubbed India’s entry with that of its all-weather friend Pakistan, which, too, is a non-NPT country.
“We understand that despite procedural hurdles persistently raised by one country, a three-hour-long discussion took place last night on the issue of future participation in the NSG”.
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He said the matter has not ended and Islamabad will continue to pursue the matter of NSG membership. “The NSG plenary in Seoul earlier in the day decided against granting India membership of the grouping immediately”, spokesman Vikas Swarup told Press Trust of India news agency.
