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India, China have ‘candid, substantive, pragmatic’ discussions on NSG
India had singled out China, without naming it, for blocking its entry into the NSG, in the last plenary of the group in Seoul in June.
China on Tuesday said it is willing to remain engaged with India on the issue of New Delhi’s membership to the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) and that it has not yet taken a position on any country-specific membership in the category of the non-NPT (non proliferation treaty) states.
The two neighbours held a fresh round of arms control consultation in New Delhi where they discussed issues of mutual interest in the area of disarmament and non-proliferation including India’s membership to the NSG, a club of nations that trades in civil nuclear technology.
The consultation was co-chaired by Wang Qun, director-General of arms Control Department of the Chinese foreign ministry, Beijing’s lead negotiator at the NSG and Amandeep Singh Gill, joint secretary for Disarmament and International Security in the external affairs ministry.
India had singled out China, without naming it, for blocking its entry into the NSG, in the last plenary of the group in Seoul in June.
“China has hitherto not yet taken a position on any country-specific membership in the category of the non-NPT states”, a statement issued by the Chinese foreign ministry on Tuesday said.
The statement said “China supports the notion of two-step approach within the Group to address the above question, i.e., at the first stage, to explore and reach agreement on a non-discriminatory formula applicable to all the non-NPT states, and to proceed to take up country-specific membership issues at the second stage.”
The Chinese took the position that the “question of the non-NPT states’ participation is, in essence, a multilateral issue, and can only be subject to multilateral solution by the Group.”
India said the discussions “were candid, pragmatic and substantive”, adding that further talks would be held.
“The talk covered issues of mutual interest in the area of disarmament and non-proliferation. As agreed by the External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and the Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in their meeting on August 13, the two sides focused in particular on an issue of priority for India -membership of the NSG,” external affairs ministry said in a statement.
(With inputs from agencies)
