By IRNA-PTI
New Delhi : India hopes to wrap up a safeguards agreement with IAEA later this month in Vienna before approaching the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) for changes to permit international nuclear commerce.
“We hope to do another round (of negotiations) in the middle of January in Vienna. We hope to wrap it up. The discussions are proceeding smoothly”, Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon told reporters here. “We hope to reach a rapid and satisfactory conclusion”, he said.
India needs to reach a safeguards agreement and then get the nod of the 45-member NSG for operationalising the Indo-US civil nuclear deal.
Asked whether India would seek China’s support at the NSG during Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s three-day visit to Beijing beginning Sunday, Menon said “we have not actually come to that stage”.
When it reaches the NSG, India would seek the support of all countries for an unconditional NSG exemption to it, he said.