Japan has reaffirmed its support for India’s Nuclear Suppliers Group membership. In the first official comment after China’s opposition sealed India’s fate at NSG group, Japan said that India’s presence in NSG will help promote non-proliferation.
According to a TOI report, as China refuses to let go of its opposition to India’s Nuclear Suppliers Group, top Japanese foreign ministry said that they continued to work with India to make its membership possible.”We intend to continue working with India on the issue as we believe its membership of NSG will help strengthen the non-proliferation regime,” said Yasuhisa Kawamura, the Director-General of Press and Public Diplomacy in Japan’s ministry of foreign affairs, adding that Japan will continue to discuss the issue with other member states.
Even though he said that China’s effort in blocking India’s membership was obvious to all, he maintained that Japan did not want to make any comment on consultations within NSG over the issue. “The fundamental issue is to ensure consensus building and we are working for it,” said Kawamura, who served as Japan’s deputy chief of mission in Delhi until a few years ago.
Senior regional coordinator in southwest Asia division, Masayuki Taga, said India’s membership will help Japan promote non-proliferation. Japan remains unwavering in its commitment to the nuclear non-proliferation treaty (NPT) and according to Kawamura, “their nation will continue to ask India to sign the treaty in a general sentiment.”
Tokyo, however, has not allowed India’s NPT non-signatory status to come in the way of its cooperation with New Delhi for the latter’s presence in NSG. This comes in sharp contrast to China which has been facing allegations of violating both the NPT and NSG guidelines and has time and again supplied nuclear technology to Pakistan. China’s NSG stance says that India’s presence in NSG will weaken the international non-proliferation regime but was itself accused recently by Arms Control Association of contradicting the 2010 NPT consensus, which forbids transfer of nuclear materials to countries which are not under full-scope IAEA safeguards, in sharing nuclear technology with Pakistan.
