Paris climate deal: Missile Technology Control Regime ‘to admit India’

Obama, Modi discuss progress on civil nuclear deal

WASHINGTON: Members of the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR), an international anti-proliferation grouping, agreed to admit India, diplomats said, in a win for Prime Minister Narendra Modi as he met US President Barack Obama, their seventh since Modi took power in 2014, in Washington on Tuesday.

Diplomats with direct knowledge of the matter said a deadline for members of the 34-nation group to object to India’s admission had expired on Monday without raising any objections.

Under this ‘silent procedure’, India’s admission follows automatically, diplomats from four MTCR member nations told Reuters on condition of anonymity.

Admission to the MTCR would open the way for India to buy high-end missile technology, also making more realistic its aspiration to buy surveillance drones such as the Predator, made by General Atomics.

Italy had objected to admitting India but, after an unrelated bilateral dispute was resolved, did not object this time within a 10-day deadline after the group’s chair, the Netherlands, wrote to members suggesting India be welcomed.

The MTCR is one of four international non-proliferation regimes that India, which in recent decades has gone from being a non-aligned outsider to a rising nuclear-weapons power, has been excluded from.

New Delhi also applied to join the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), a 48-nation club that governs trade in commercial nuclear technology and was originally set up in response to India’s first atomic weapons test in 1974.

Meanwhile, President Obama said on Tuesday that he and Modi discussed how to ensure a worldwide agreement forged in Paris to curb climate change could be enacted swiftly.

“We discussed how we can, as quickly as possible, bring the Paris agreement into force,” Obama told reporters during a meeting with Modi at the White House.

“We continue to discuss a wide range of areas where we can cooperate more effectively in order to promote jobs, promote investment, promote trade, and promote greater opportunities for our people, particularly young people, in both of our countries,” Obama said prior to the meeting.

The statement issued following the meeting, Washington underscored its promise to formally ratify the agreement “as soon as possible this year”.

India echoed that commitment, saying it “similarly has begun its processes to work toward this shared objective”.

Obama and Modi also welcomed the start of preparatory work on six nuclear reactors in India.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 8^th, 2016.