Saturday, March 19, 2005
NSG team arriving next month to check Pakistan’s nuclear exports
* Nuclear Suppliers Group chairman says Pakistan cannot join nuclear club until it signs Non-Proliferation Treaty
VIENNA: Experts representing the world’s top nuclear exporters will visit Pakistan next month to assess whether controls are in place to prevent illicit exports of sensitive atomic technology, the group’s chairman said.
The team from the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), the 44-nation alliance that polices global exports of materials and equipment that can be used in atomic weapons, should arrive in early April, said the NSG’s Swedish chairman, Richard Ekwall. Pakistan is at the centre of an investigation of a nuclear black market linked to the father of Pakistan’s atom bomb programme, Abdul Qadeer Khan.
Ekwall said the visit to Pakistan was part of the NSG’s “outreach” programme to states that are not members but are important for the global export control regime. He said NSG teams had recently visited Israel, India and Egypt.
Speaking about those visits and his upcoming visit to Pakistan, Ekwall said the trips were to “review and discuss export control systems of those governments”. “They (Pakistan) have passed new legislation,” he said. “The visit to Islamabad would give us the opportunity to discuss in more detail what their export control system looks like.”
Several diplomats from NSG member states said Pakistan’s poor compliance with NSG rules is one of the group’s biggest problems. Asked if this was true, Ekwall declined to comment.
Pakistan has expressed its desire to join the NSG, whose members include the key nuclear supplier states, including the United States, Russia, China and Germany.
“Being a nuclear weapons state, Pakistan has the capability of research and development of nuclear technology and materials,” foreign ministry spokesman Jalil Abbas Jilani said. “Therefore, Pakistan can contribute to the objectives of non-proliferation by joining the NSG as a partner.”
Ekwall said it was virtually impossible for Islamabad to join the NSG, since it is a nuclear weapon state that has neither signed nor complies with the NPT.
“One of the criteria for joining the NSG is that you adhere to the NPT, the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty,” Ekwall said, along with proof of full compliance with NSG export controls. reuters
Daily Times - All Rights Reserved