#Washington : India will probably need to wait a while longer before it joins the elite club of nations that control trade in advanced nuclear technologies, according to three diplomats with knowledge of the process.
A delay could roil plans by President Barack Obama and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who were meeting in Washington on Tuesday, to bring the world’s second-most-populous nation into the nuclear mainstream. It would push back a decision on Indian membership to later in the year, and risk bumping into the U.S. presidential election.
Secretary of State John Kerry made a plea to member states skeptical toward India’s bid for NSG membership to “agree not to block consensus on Indian admission” to the group at the Seoul meeting, accord to a two-page letter dated June 3 seen by Bloomberg News. “India has shown strong support for the objectives of the NSG and the global nuclear nonproliferation regime and is a ‘like-minded’ state deserving of NSG admission,” Kerry wrote.
A State Department spokeswoman, asked to respond to the comments from the diplomats, said that Obama affirmed that the country has met the requirements when he visited Modi in New Delhi last year.
The NSG was created in response to India’s 1974 atomic-bomb test that challenged the credibility of laws written to prohibit nuclear proliferation. Its network of diplomats, customs and trade officials are supposed to prevent unauthorized transfer of nuclear materials and technologies that could be used in weapons.
While the diplomats said they’re not opposed to letting India into the NSG eventually, they said the terms of entry require more negotiating to preserve the credibility of the trade controls. They want tighter monitoring by international nuclear inspectors as well as iron-clad assurances that Indian activities in its civilian nuclear program won’t be used for military purposes.
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