NSG assailed for treating Pakistan, India differently on membership

Published January 2, 2021
Pakistan Rangers (wearing black uniforms) and Indian Border Security Force (BSF) officers lower their national flags during a daily parade at the Pakistan-India joint check-post at Wagah border in this file photo. — Reuters
Pakistan Rangers (wearing black uniforms) and Indian Border Security Force (BSF) officers lower their national flags during a daily parade at the Pakistan-India joint check-post at Wagah border in this file photo. — Reuters

ISLAMABAD: A senior foreign ministry official, while criticising the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) for differently treating Pakistani and Indian applications for membership, has regretted that the multilateral export control regime is politicised.

According to a media statement issued on Friday by the Strategic Vision Institute (SVI), which hosted a webinar on “The politics of NSG: The current dimensions”, the director general of the foreign ministry’s Arms Control and Disarmament Division, Kamran Akhtar, said: “NSG very much epitomises the politics of non-proliferation at the global level.”

He accused the NSG of according “precedence to the interests of the nuclear supplier states”.

Indian and Pakistani applications for membership have been held up at the NSG since 2016 because of their non-NPT status and differences between members over the admission criteria.

According to Mr Akhtar, Pakistan is better qualified than India, even going by the formula proposed by Ambassador Rafael Grossi in 2016, as it does not have a mix of safeguarded and unsafeguarded facilities and has been more forthcoming in accepting legally binding commitments.

Speakers at a webinar identify deficiencies in the export control regimes

Speaking about India, he said: “If there was an argument that mainstreaming of India would benefit the non-proliferation regime, the Indian behaviour since joining Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR) belies that argument.”

Mr Akhtar said there should not be two different standards for judging the membership applications from India and Pakistan. “Unfortunately, that’s what is happening now,” he added.

A former official of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Dr Tariq Rauf, identified major problems and deficiencies in the export control regimes. He said the regimes did not adapt to the changing international situations and there was a lack of universality and legitimacy in them, besides having inconsistent internal implementation.

A former permanent representative to the Conference on Disarmament and the UN in Geneva, Ambassador Zamir Akram, also noted that the working of NSG was driven by geopolitics.

He said Pakistan’s argument had always been that there should be an equitable basis on which membership should be accorded. Pakistan also has other options like cooperation with China in civilian use of nuclear technology under the IAEA directives, he added.

SVI president Dr Zafar Iqbal Cheema said the applications by India and Pakis­tan, since 2016, had become a very cont­e­n­tious issue within the NSG as well as the outside politics which was related to it.

Published in Dawn, January 2nd, 2021

Opinion

Editorial

Smog hazard
Updated 05 Nov, 2024

Smog hazard

The catastrophe unfolding in Lahore is a product of authorities’ repeated failure to recognise environmental impact of rapid urbanisation.
Monetary policy
05 Nov, 2024

Monetary policy

IN an aggressive move, the State Bank on Monday reduced its key policy rate by a hefty 250bps to 15pc. This is the...
Cultural power
05 Nov, 2024

Cultural power

AS vital modes of communication, art and culture have the power to overcome social and international barriers....
Disregarding CCI
Updated 04 Nov, 2024

Disregarding CCI

The failure to regularly convene CCI meetings means that the process of democratic decision-making is falling apart.
Defeating TB
04 Nov, 2024

Defeating TB

CONSIDERING the fact that Pakistan has the fifth highest burden of tuberculosis in the world as per the World Health...
Ceasefire charade
Updated 04 Nov, 2024

Ceasefire charade

The US talks of peace, while simultaneously arming and funding their Israeli allies, are doomed to fail, and are little more than a charade.