Tokyo/New Delhi, June 25 (IANS) Shedding months of ambivalence after backing India in the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) in September 2008, Japan Friday announced that it will start talks with New Delhi over a bilateral civil nuclear pact next week.
Japan will start talks with India over civil nuclear energy cooperation, Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada said in Tokyo.
‘There are projects that suppliers of other countries are involved in (in India) that require Japanese technologies. That is a point of consideration,’ Okada told reporters.
Alluding to Japan’s decision to back exemption for India in the Nuclear Suppliers Group nearly 18 months ago that lifted 34-year-old ban on global nuclear trade with New Delhi, Okada said Tokyo cannot go against the international trend.
The two sides will hold the first round of negotiations for a bilateral nuclear pact in Tokyo on June 28-29, Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement.
Sources in New Delhi welcomed Japan’s decision to begin civil nuclear talks, but declined to speculate on the outcome.
Japan, a pacifist country and the only nation ever attacked with atomic weapons, is a world leader in civilian nuclear technology and depends on atomic power for over 40 percent of its electricity requirements. The deal will enable top Japanese multinationals like Toshiba Corp. and Hitachi Ltd. to sell nuclear technology to India.
The decision to start nuclear talks mark a turning point as Tokyo, known for its hawkish stance on nuclear non-proliferation issues, had earlier linked bilateral civil nuclear cooperation with India with New Delhi signing and ratifying the the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT).
India has refused to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and the CTBT as it believes that these treaties are ‘discriminatory’ and divide the world into the nuclear haves and have-nots.
Japan’s announcement of nuclear talks comes days before India and Canada sign a nuclear deal when the prime ministers of the two countries meet in Toronto over the weekend.
