The members of the Missile
Technology Control Regime, a key anti-proliferation grouping,
have agreed to admit India, diplomats said, in a win for Prime Minister
Narendra Modi as he meets President Barack Obama in Washington on Tuesday.
Diplomats
with direct knowledge of the matter said a deadline for members of the
34-nation group to object to India's admission had expired on Monday without
any of them raising objections.
Under
this so-called 'silent procedure', India's admission follows automatically,
diplomats from four MTCR member nations told Reuters on condition of anonymity.
Obama
was expected to say he was looking forward to India's "imminent
entry" into the MTCR when the two leaders address the press after their
seventh bilateral meeting, sources aware of its agenda said.
Admission
to the MTCR would open the way for India to buy high-end missile technology,
also making more realistic its aspiration to buy state-of-the-art surveillance drones such as the
U.S. Predator, made by General Atomics.
ARMS EXPORTER
India
also makes a supersonic cruise missile, the Brahmos, in a joint venture with
Russia that both countries hope to sell to third countries - a development that
would make India a significant arms exporter for the first time.
Membership of the MTCR would
require India to comply with rules - such as a maximum missile range of 300 km
(186 miles) - that seek to prevent arms races from developing.
Italy
had earlier objected to admitting India but, after an unrelated bilateral
dispute was resolved, did not object this time within a 10-day deadline after
the group's chair, the Netherlands, wrote to members suggesting India be
welcomed.
An
Italian marine, held for four years at the country's embassy in New Delhi over
the killing of two Indian fishermen in an anti-piracy operation in 2012, was recently allowed to
return home.
No
formal meeting is required for India to complete its entry into the missile
control group, which was set up in 1987 to limit the spread of unmanned systems
capable of delivering weapons of mass destruction.
The
MTCR is one of four international non-proliferation regimes that India - which
in recent decades has gone from being a non-aligned outsider to a rising nuclear-weapons
power - has been excluded from.
New
Delhi has also applied to join the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), a 48-nation
club that governs trade in commercial nuclear technology and was originally set
up in response to India's first atomic weapons test in 1974.
Joining
the NSG will be much more difficult because China is a member and has backed
the membership aspirations of Pakistan, its ally and India's arch-rival.
Still,
the breakthrough on the MTCR will be welcomed in the U.S. Congress, which Modi
will address on Wednesday. Congress ratified a civilian nuclear agreement with
India in 2008 that seeks to build commercial ties, while at the same time
binding New Delhi into the global security order.
Ahead
of the summit, U.S.-based nuclear reactor maker Westinghouse, a unit of Japan's
Toshiba Corp, has made progress towards a deal
to build six reactors in Andhra Pradesh. A deal, if completed, would
be the first to stem from the civil nuclear accord.
Source: Reuters
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