NO NSG WAIVER FOR INDIA, SAYS NEW ZEALAND DEPUTY PM

Why in news?

The path ahead for the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) is yet “unknown”, said New Zealand Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters, who raised the issue with the government during his visit to Delhi in the last week of February 2020.

Details of the visit

• This visit was regarding bilateral trade and multilateral cooperation in the Indo-Pacific.

• New Zealand had Blocked India’s entry as a member of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) along with China and others in 2016, and The Deputy Prime Minister confirmed that New Zealand’s stand had not changed.

• New Zealand continued to ask the NSG to develop “fixed norms and criteria” for all non-signatories to the Non Proliferation Treaty.

India – New Zealand relations

• India and New Zealand have cordial and friendly relations rooted in the linkages
• of Commonwealth (Both the countries were a part of the British Empire) and parliamentary democracy.
• There are approximately 1,75,000 people of Indian descent in New Zealand –
• Both countries have been a part of the East Asian Summit -The East Asia Summit (EAS) is a regional forum held annually by leaders of, initially, 16 countries in the East Asian, Southeast Asian, and South Asian regions, based on the ASEAN Plus Six mechanism. Membership expanded to 18 countries including Russia and the United States at the Sixth EAS in 2011.

What is Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG)?

• The Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) is a multilateral export control regime and a group of nuclear supplier countries that seek to prevent nuclear proliferation by controlling the export of materials, equipment and technology that can be used to manufacture nuclear weapons.
• The NSG was founded in response to the Indian nuclear test in May 1974.
• The test demonstrated that certain non-weapons specific nuclear technology could be readily turned to weapons development.

• Nations already signatories of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) saw the need to further limit the export of nuclear equipment, materials or technology.

Non-Proliferation Treaty

• The Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, commonly known as the Non-Proliferation Treaty or NPT, is an international treaty whose objective is to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons and weapons technology, to promote cooperation in the peaceful uses of nuclear energy, and to further the goal of achieving nuclear disarmament and general and complete disarmament

• The NPT is often seen to be based on a central bargain: “the NPT non-nuclear-weapon states agree never to acquire nuclear weapons and the NPT nuclear-weapon states in exchange agree to share the benefits of peaceful nuclear technology and to pursue nuclear disarmament aimed at the ultimate elimination of their nuclear arsenals.”

• The treaty defines nuclear-weapon states as those that have built and tested a nuclear explosive device before 1 January 1967; these are the United States, Russia, the United Kingdom, France, and China.
• Four other states are known or believed to possess nuclear weapons: India, Pakistan, and North Korea have openly tested and declared that they possess nuclear weapons, while Israel is deliberately ambiguous regarding its nuclear weapons status.
• The Treaty has 189 States Parties, which is the largest number of any arms control agreement.
• However, India, Israel and Pakistan have not signed the NPT.
• North Korea announced its withdrawal in 2003, and further announced that it had conducted an underground nuclear explosion in 2006 and 2009.