China’s state media China Central Television (CCTV) aired a special live coverage of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s first official visit to US, which began on Monday.
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A two-day meeting in Vienna of the Nuclear Suppliers Group to decide on India’s application for membership to the 48-nation club ended today without a breakthrough. India had fulfilled all the conditions that were asked of it at the time of the 2008 waiver: separating civil and military nuclear facilities, signing an additional protocol of conditions, and introducing more safeguards against nuclear theft or proliferation.
How important is the membership in the NSG for Indian nuclear trade?
Pakistan joining would be unacceptable to many, given its track record.
“If you look at the Prime Minister and his Government’s foreign policy, in a comprehensive perspective over the past 2 years, India has neither gained diplomatically, neither strategically, neither economically and neither militarily”. However, Brazil had signed the Treaty of Tlatelolco, a treaty equivalent to the NPT.
He, however, said, “If their relationship with India upsets the conventional and nuclear balance in the region, it would affect our ties and would also be detrimental for peace in the region”. Massieu expressed support for a “non-discriminatory approach on NSG expansion to non-NPT states”, the statement said.
Toner also said the US’s bilateral relations with India and Pakistan are separate and stand on their own merits.
“Adviser to the Prime Minister on Foreign Affairs Sartaj Aziz spoke over telephone with Mexican Foreign Minister Claudia Ruiz Massieu as part of Pakistan’s continuing diplomatic efforts towards mobilising support for Pakistan’s application for the membership of Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG)”, a Foreign Office statement said here.
Pakistan has been lobbying hard to scuttle India’s NSG bid, saying that country-specific exemptions would be harmful to South Asia. Unlike India and Pakistan, Namibia is an NPT signatory, a member of the African equivalent of the NPT – called the Pelindaba Treaty – and promises far greater nuclear trade right away than even New Delhi can boast.
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New Zealand is reported to have softened its stance against a renewed American-led push for India to join a club of countries controlling access to sensitive nuclear technology. He too is being warned by the same lot of patriotic commentators not to get carried away by all the June warmth in Washington DC, and sacrifice India’s national interest.
