Notwithstanding vociferous opposition from Beijing, India is “hopeful” of China’s support for its membership bid at the 48-member Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG).
“China is not trying to block India’s NSG bid; it has questions on processes and procedures …. We are hopeful that we will be able to convince China. And as far as the remaining countries are concerned, they only have a few questions that we are addressing. So, I think a consensus is building up,” External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj told reporters during an annual media conference here.
On China backing Pakistan’s case at the NSG, Swaraj said the NSG should consider India’s application based on the criterion for which it got a waiver in 2008.
India’s application will be decided during a plenary meeting of the NSG in Seoul on June 24. During the preliminary meeting that took place on June 9 in Vienna, China did not support India’s bid.
Diplomatic efforts To convince China, the government had dispatched Foreign Secretary S Jaishankar to Beijing on June 16 and 17 to discuss the matter.
Meanwhile, official sources told BusinessLine that India was also “aggressively reaching out” to several other countries that are also opposed to India’s membership, such as Turkey, Ireland and New Zealand.
Membership ‘imperative’ According to sources, officials in the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) in charge of these countries have been advised to “pursue” the matter with the respective governments. “We only want applications to be decided on the basis of certain criterion, which was decided before the 2008 waiver. We got the waiver because of those criteria. So, today they should talk about our credentials and not criteria,” Swaraj said.
According to Swaraj, it is “imperative” for India to obtain NSG membership despite having the waiver. This is because, she said, by being a member India will be able to play a role in its decision-making process.