New Delhi
5 July 2011
A statement issued after external affairs minister SM Krishna's talks with his Dutch counterpart Uri Rosenthal in New Delhi on Tuesday was silent on the new Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) guidelines limiting the sale of sensitive enrichment and reprocessing (ENR) technologies to NPT signatories only. However, the issue was understood to have been discussed in the meeting, coming as it did less than a fortnight after the NSG plenary at Noordwijk in the Netherlands, which concluded on June 24.The Netherlands is currently the chair of the 46-member NSG.
India has not signed the NPT, and, therefore, it views the revised guidelines as impinging on the clean waiver it got from the NSG in September 2008. The guidelines have not been published in open text as yet, but the Dutch minister's visit here would have served India to fully discuss them and draw appropriate conclusions from it. The sentiment in the NSG on India's quest for the membership of the group, and the sale of two new reactors by China to Pakistan, were understood to have been discussed, too. In May, foreign secretary Nirupama Rao had met with the NSG Troika, comprising the Netherlands, New Zealand and Hungary, in The Hague.
The situation in Afghanistan and Pakistan, West Asia, North Africa, and UN reforms figured in their discussions, too. The Dutch minister had visited Afghanistan before arriving in New Delhi. The Netherlands was the first NATO ally to withdraw its combat troops from Afghanistan in August 2010, but it was helping in training the Afghan security forces, which India was doing, too.
Meanwhile, France reiterated its commitment to full civil nuclear cooperation with India in all aspects, including, but not limited to, nuclear fuel cycle and nuclear fuel. In his second statement in five days, France's ambassador to India Jerome Bonnafont said, " ... nothing in the existing and future guidelines shall be interpreted as detracting from that exemption or reducing the ambition of our bilateral cooperation."
The situation in Afghanistan and Pakistan, West Asia, North Africa, and UN reforms figured in their discussions, too. The Dutch minister had visited Afghanistan before arriving in New Delhi. The Netherlands was the first NATO ally to withdraw its combat troops from Afghanistan in August 2010, but it was helping in training the Afghan security forces, which India was doing, too.
Meanwhile, France reiterated its commitment to full civil nuclear cooperation with India in all aspects, including, but not limited to, nuclear fuel cycle and nuclear fuel. In his second statement in five days, France's ambassador to India Jerome Bonnafont said, " ... nothing in the existing and future guidelines shall be interpreted as detracting from that exemption or reducing the ambition of our bilateral cooperation."
He qualified it by saying that the scope of bilateral civil nuclear cooperation would be consistent with France's national policies and international obligations, including the NPT. The reiteration by France follows foreign secretary Nirupama Rao's interview to an Indian television channel in which she hinted that India could choose not to buy nuclear reactors from countries that would not sell ENR technologies to it.
