(From Reuters)
India said it had held “substantive” talks with China on Tuesday on its attempt to become a fully fledged member of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), a club of nations that trades in civil nuclear technology.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi is campaigning to join the NSG to back a multi-billion-dollar drive to build nuclear power plants in partnership with Russia, the United States and France, and reduce India’s reliance on polluting fossil fuels.
Yet his bid to win accession to the 48-member group that was founded in response to India’s first atomic weapons test in 1974 has so far failed to win over strategic rival Beijing, which enjoys a de facto veto because the group operates by consensus.
India’s foreign ministry said in a statement that its chief nuclear negotiator, Amandeep Singh Gill, had hosted a Chinese delegation led by Director General Wang Qun of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
The talks, agreed earlier by the two countries’ foreign ministers, covered issues of mutual interest in the areas of disarmament and non-proliferation, and focused on India’s bid to join the NSG. Read More