THE third Nuclear Security Summit held at The Hague saw Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif repeat the long-standing Pakistani demand that the country be included in the Nuclear Suppliers Group, the 48-member nuclear export club focused on non-proliferation. Membership of the club bestows many advantages, but perhaps the biggest attraction it holds for Pakistan is the legitimacy participation bestows on a country as a responsible member of the global nuclear community. Within the NSG, Pakistan would likely position itself as both a buyer and seller — a buyer a la the Indo-US nuclear deal of 2006 and a seller because of the advance nuclear fuel cycle capabilities that Pakistan has developed. But all of that remains a distant dream, undone by a record of nuclear proliferation centring around the A.Q. Khan saga that Pakistan would like the world to move on from, but that the outside world is less keen on doing.

In truth, Pakistan meets the criteria for entry to the NSG, but entry is also decided on political grounds. With India, whose entry to the NSG the US sought in 2010 but that has yet to be formally granted, trade and investment opportunities and a growing diplomatic closeness helped smooth the way to de facto nuclear power status. Pakistan, wracked as it is by violence and often on the wrong side of global terrorism and proliferation concerns, has no such benefits. And there the matter appears to rest, despite Pakistan having taken great strides towards tightening its non-proliferation regime and ensuring the safety and security of its nuclear programme and assets. Yet, distant though the achieving of the goal may be, the country’s leadership is right to keep reiterating its credentials and qualifications for NSG membership at every available opportunity. In this way, when the moment does arrive for membership to be considered, Pakistan will have a long and verifiable record of abiding by the principles of the nuclear club that sets the international rules for trade in civilian nuclear technology.

In the meantime, however, there are civilian nuclear projects where the Pakistani government ought to consider involving international expertise to help mitigate domestic concerns and perhaps even regional and international ones. As the PML-N government prepares to implement massive new nuclear energy projects in the country, there have been questions asked in some quarters about the location and design of the new projects. If even the safety-obsessed Japanese could suffer a Fukushima-type disaster, surely the Pakistani government must go to whatever lengths it can to ensure the public in a potentially affected zone and the international community that it is not putting pride and prestige ahead of safety and environmental concerns.