Saturday, August 9, 2008

Switzerland can derail Indian nuclear run at NSG meet

EW DELHI: As hectic Indian diplomacy ahead of the August 21 NSG meet wins more and more support, Switzerland remains one country which can give India the jitters on the bumpy road to nuclear glory.

It's unlikely that Switzerland would want to single-handedly derail the India-US nuclear deal but its ambassador to India Dominique Dreyer told TOI on Friday that the Swiss government had not yet taken a decision on whether or not to support the deal at the NSG because of non-proliferation concerns.

"We are still in the process of studying the documents. No decision has been taken yet," said Dreyer.

The ambassador went on to add that the deal posed a problem as far as non-proliferation was concerned.

"There are some problems with the deal as far as non-proliferation is concerned but we are still looking at it," he said, adding that non-proliferation had always been a very important issue for Switzerland.

He, however, left a window open by saying that Switzerland understood India's energy needs. Dreyer made the remarks while talking about Switzerland's plans to celebrate 60 years of friendship with India.

Like Austria and New Zealand, Switzerland too is looked upon as a country which can spoil India's chances at the NSG, which works only through consensus. Its policies demand that there be no nuclear trade with a country which has not signed the NPT.

Switzerland, however, supported India at the IAEA and foreign ministry officials are confident that it won't allow its concerns over non-proliferation to sabotage the deal.

"It creates between the IAEA and a non-state NPT party a new relationship in the area of safeguards and does not take up certain components of the NPT such as global non-proliferation," Switzerland had said at the IAEA while backing the deal, but it added that India adhered to non-proliferation norms.

In another piece of good news for India, Canada seems to have tilted towards NSG waiver after the visit by NSA M K Narayanan to Ottawa earlier this week.

Canada is an extremely important country because it has long been in the vanguard of the non-proliferation movement and its stand may determine what direction many smaller countries move in. Foreign minister David Emerson said that despite his country's concerns and frustrations over its nuclear history with India, it realises that somebody can't be kept in the penalty box forever.

"And India has come a long way in terms of democracy and the rule of law, and the whole nuclear constellation of issues has evolved to the point where we just can't continue with our position that has been absolute and negative to allowing India back into the nuclear club," Emerson was quoted as saying in the interview.



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