New Delhi
23 March 2006
As Washington engages the 45-member Nuclear Suppliers Group's
(NSG's) consultative group, Japan has joined some NSG members to voice its fears over
the India-United States nuclear deal.
The diplomats of certain NSG members, who attended the two-day meeting in Vienna, are
understood to have sought a "deadline commitment" that India will sign the Nuclear Non-
Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
Echoing similar sentiments, Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Aso has said he was
concerned about the precedent the India-US nuclear deal will set for certain other
countries and whether this could undermine the NPT.
"I told US Secretary of State (Condoleezza) Rice during our talks that Japan, even if
asked by the United States to support it, could not oblige easily, as this would definitely
be a double standard," he was quoted as saying.
Defending the deal, US Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Nicholas Burns has
said, "The curious aspect of the current nonproliferation regime globally is that some
countries that are inside the regime - I'm thinking here of Iran and North Korea - have not
met their commitments to the NPT regime and in fact are cheating and have cheated on
those commitments. And the anomaly is that some countries on the outside - and India is
the most prominent of those - are adhering to the regulations of the nonproliferation
regime, but they're not allowed in".
He also said India deserved exceptional treatment because it consistently acted as a
responsible member of the international community. India, he observed, has volunteered
to place majority of its civilian nuclear facilities under International Atomic Energy
Agency (IAEA) safeguards.
"Think what that means," Burns said. "India is accepting international oversight,
accepting international inspections. Who can argue with that? Who wouldn't want to see
the largest country in the world, the largest democracy in the world [s]ubmit itself to
inspections? We think that's a net gain, a strong one for the international proliferation
system."
The NSG plenary will meet next in May.
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