Procedural delay and not failure, says MEA on India's NSG membership issue

New Delhi: The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) on Sunday refused to call it a 'failure' after India's entry into the Nuclear Supplier Group (NSG) remained inconclusive following discussion on its membership at a conference in Seoul this week.

It expressed hope that a special plenary session of the NSG can be called by the year-end to discuss the issue again.

There are some processes which take longer, I'd evaluate the NSG membership process in that category, MEA spokesperson Vikas Swarup said.

“I won't use the word 'failure', but certainly yes, we did not get the expected results,” he said.

Some countries did raise procedure-related issues but only one country opposed India's membership. It persistently raised procedural hurdles and as a result of which no result could be arrived at,” he added.

On the issue of India's stand on NPT, he said, “Our position on NPT is well known. NSG said implementation of NPT is important. We have already implemented all NPT provisions.”

“To the extent that goal post remains implementation of NPT, we believe we have met criteria and have all credentials to be NSG member,” the MEA spokesperson said.

“Our credentials on non-proliferation are very well known, our track record speaks for itself, I don't think anyone in global community can ever equate India with Pakistan on Nuclear non-proliferation issue,”he said.