By Xinhua,
Vienna : A two-day meeting of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) ended here Friday with no agreement on whether to lift a ban on nuclear trade with India.
The 45 NSG member countries have decided to meet again on Sept.4-5 to try to resolve their difference over whether to allow nuclear fuel and technology exports to India for its civilian use.
The United States, Russia and France stood for lift of the nuclear trade ban, while others such as Norway, Ireland, New Zealand, Switzerland, the Netherlands and Austria insisted on amendments to a U.S. draft for a waiver breaking a trade embargo imposed on India.
India conducted its first nuclear test in May 1974 and so far has not signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). The South Asian country, therefore, has been under a nuclear trade embargo, which the NSG imposes on countries which are not signatories of the NPT.
Under a U.S.-Indian agreement signed in March 2006, as long as India separates its military and civilian nuclear facilities and agrees to supervision by International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA),it will be allowed to buy nuclear technology and nuclear fuel from the United States.
The agreement has cleared the Indian parliament and the UN nuclear watchdog also approved the deal by signing a nuclear safeguards agreement with India this month. An NSG go-ahead is the last step for the deal to be submitted to the U.S. Congress for approval.
However, critics say the implementation of the U.S.-India nuclear cooperation agreement will be a breach of the NPT, thus undermining international non-proliferation efforts.