India is attaching a lot of hope from Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s five-nation tour from June 4 to 8, just ahead of the special meeting of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG).
The NSG will hold a special meeting on June 9 to assess India’s application on technical grounds for the membership to the elite club. If it passes the first test then India’s application will be put forth before the NSG on June 24 to take a call on the membership.
It is against this backdrop that the PM’s itinerary has seen two additions —Switzerland and Mexico — the two important members of the 48-member NSG which have expressed reservations over India’s entry to the grouping without signing the Non Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
Modi’s visit to these two countries in addition to Afghanistan, Qatar and the United States of America is seen as an effort to reduce the number of nay-sayers in the crucial meeting on June 9. The USA has openly voiced support to India but China has been a spoiler by objecting by raising the NPT clause. Besides, China has been rooting for Pakistan’s entry if at all exemptions are given to India.
The Indian missions for the last several months have been lobbying hard to push India’s case with the NSG member countries. External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj also personally raised India’s membership issue with NSG chairman Ambassador Rafael Mariano Grossi. India formally applied for membership of the NSG on May 12. The membership to NSG will allow India easy access to materials for its civilian Nuclear facilities.
Foreign Secretary S Jaishankar, however, denied Switzerland and Mexico were added in PM itinerary at the last minute. He said the idea of visit to Switzerland arose from a meeting PM had with Swiss President on the sidelines of the Nuclear Security Summit in USA in March while the visit to Mexico was being considered since September last year.
The FS added India is actively engaging with all NSG members and in this context PM’s visit to Switzerland and Mexico is important. “I think we have made a lot of progress and that has led us to formally apply for the NSG membership some days ago. We are engaged with all NSG members regarding this issue and Switzerland is definitely an important member and definitely, I would expect it to come up,” the FS said about Modi’s discussion on NSG membership with the two countries.
He added that the NPT and NSG have different objectives. And since countries like India need more energy, the nuclear component will only grow. “We are looking at major domestic expansion of nuclear energy and major collaborations will take place. We are going to have a very large number of nuclear reactors in the next 15 years in the country and getting in the NSG will facilitate trade with us. Besides, we are also exporters and we want our own industry to be complaint to international norms,” Jaishankar said. He added given India’s track record in adherence to its nuclear safety commitments, there is a strong case.
With Switzerland, Black Money is another important point of discussion. “We are in touch with the Swiss Government under the DTAA (Double Taxation Avoidance Agreement) mandate and we have had some discussions on this and we have a few planned in the near future. We have received support from the Swiss authorities on exchange of information on tax data between the two countries. We do hope to engage as early as possible in the automatic exchange of information with Switzerland and this has been conveyed to Swiss tax authorities,” the FS said.