A major aspect of the deal was the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), that gave a special waiver to India enabling it to sign cooperation agreements with a dozen countries.Post-waiver, India signed civil nuclear cooperation agreements with the US, France, Russia, Canada, Argentina, Australia, Sri Lanka, the UK, Japan, Vietnam, Bangladesh, Kazakhstan and South Korea.
On Wednesday, the United States also reaffirmed its strong support to India’s early membership in the 48-member NSG. Notably, China has blocked India’s pending membership to the elite grouping that seeks to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons.
During the meeting, the two sides exchanged views on a wide range of global security and non-proliferation challenges and reaffirmed their commitment to work together to prevent the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and their delivery systems and to deny access to such weapons by terrorists and non-state actors.
On March 12, Indra Mani Pandey, India’s additional secretary for disarmament and international security affairs, and Yleem D. S. Poblete, US assistant secretary of state for arms control, verification and compliance, co-chaired the third round of India-US Space Dialogue.The two delegations discussed trends in space threats; respective national space priorities; and opportunities for cooperation bilaterally and in multilateral fora.
