By IANS,
New Delhi : On the eve of his departure for the US and Brazil, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh Friday said that India was a “important stakeholder” in the endeavour to address the challenges of nuclear security, proliferation and terrorism.
The prime minister will leave Saturday morning for Washington to attend the Nuclear Security Summit and then travel to Brasilia for the India-Brazil-South Africa (IBSA) and Brazil-Russia-India-China (BRIC) summits.
Welcoming US President Barack Obama’s initiative for a summit on nuclear security, Singh said in his departure statement that the subject was topical as civilian nuclear power is set to grow to address the “developmental challenges of our times”.
“This will be possible only if we, as individual nations, and as a global community ensure the highest standards of security which reinforce public faith in the benefits of nuclear science. India is an important stakeholder in this global endeavour,” he said.
Manmohan Singh hoped that the summit will also “focus on nuclear terrorism and proliferation of sensitive nuclear materials and technologies”. “These are legitimate concerns which require firm responses,” he asserted.
He pointed out that India has been a “responsible nuclear power” with “impeccable record of security, safety and non-proliferation”.
He also reminded the international community that India was among the first countries to call for universal nuclear disarmament. “I am encouraged by the fact that this approach is finding greater resonance today. We will continue to call for more meaningful progress in this direction,” he said.
Talking about the summit meetings in Brazil, he said such groupings “reflect the growing role of emerging economies in shaping the global economic order”.
On IBSA, he said the coordination between the three countries had expanded on international areas, and that cooperation was “beginning to bear fruit in many sectors”.
About the second BRIC meeting, he said it represented the “future of the global economic landscape”.
“We have a high stake in the revival of the global economy, an open trading system, energy security, combating climate change and addressing non-traditional threats to international security,” he said.
Manmohan Singh also noted that there will be significant bilateral meetings at both places, with US President Obama, French President Nicolas Sarkozy, Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Brazilian President Lula da Silva, Chinese President Hu Jintao and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev.