India not to back down on its position before next NSG meet

Ahead of the second meeting  of the 45-nation grouping that comprises the Nuclear Suppliers Group, due to be held on 3 September, India has said it will will not accept the waiver if the "red lines" set by it are crossed.

National security adviser M K Narayanan told a new programme that the inclusion of any clause on testing, periodic review or denial of enrichment and reprocessing technology in the text of the NSG waiver would be unacceptable and hoped a way around these issues would be found through diplomatic efforts.

Narayanan said the outcome of the NSG meeting on August 21-22, which could not arrive at a decision to grant a waiver to India, was neither a debacle nor debacle nor a setback, as thenegotiators were prepared for it as they had been warned in advance that it it may be necessary to have two rounds of meetings with the NSG before finalising something which would be mutually satisfactory.

He denied that India was arm-twisting countries like Ireland, Austria, New Zealand, Switzerland who had created hurdles at the NSG as support for the waiver was not a touchstone for friendly relations with any country, saying, "I believe if anybody is friendly to us, they will benefit."

The national security adviser categoriclly stated that there was no question of cosmetic or other changes, saying what India was really saying is that India that on certain issues "there are certain red lines drawn by us" obn the basis of the commitments made by the prime mjinister inn Parliament and the government could not go back on them, saying, "These are sacrosanct and if these are not met we cannot endorse the agreement."

On the position of some NSG countries that the civillian nuclear cooperation should be terminated if India conducted any nuclear tests, Narayanan said the usage of word "testing" would not be acceptable to India, saying that testing was a word that it finds difficult to adjust to, because that is what Parliament had mandated the government.