India, U.S. to resume n-talks today

By C. Raja Mohan

NEW DELHI, APRIL 16. As part of the effort to reduce their differences on non-proliferation, India and the United States will begin on Monday a new round of consultations on export controls in Washington.

These talks are aimed at harmonising policies on limiting the spread of weapons of mass destruction and associated materials and technology. They are a sub-set of the extended nuclear dialogue between the External Affairs Minister, Mr. Jaswant Singh, and the U.S. Deputy Secretary of State, Mr. Strobe Talbott.

A team of officials led by Mr. Rakesh Sood, Joint Secretary in the Ministry of External Affairs, left for Washington early this morning. The team includes officials from the Defence Research and Development Organisation, the Directorate-General of Foreign Trade, and Customs.

The U.S. team is being led by Mr. John Barker, Deputy Assistant Secretary for export controls in the State Department. Two earlier rounds of Indo-U.S. discussions on export controls were held in November 1998 and March 1999.

The question of export controls has been among the four non- proliferation benchmarks set by the Clinton Administration in its dialogue with India. The others are the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, limiting the production of fissile material for nuclear weapons, and defence posture.

With India's own long-standing commitment to prevent the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, the discussion on export controls has been the least contentious in the Indo-U.S. nuclear dialogue.

Since the early 1990s, when India began to lay emphasis on exports in its strategy of globalisation, there has been a growing awareness here of the need for an effective policy on controlling the exports of sensitive technologies that can be used for both civilian and military purposes as well as defence items.

The Exim policy announced by the Government in 1995 took the first steps in that direction.

Following the nuclear tests in May 1998, the Prime Minister, Mr. Atal Behari Vajpayee, had reaffirmed India's commitment to maintain a stringent policy on export controls and to further strengthen it where necessary.

Last year the Government set up an inter-ministerial group on export controls, which submitted its recommendations early this year.Based on these, the latest Exim policy announced by the Government on March 31 has codified the list of prohibited items and listed a comprehensive series of regulations and procedures for the export of dual-use technologies and defence items under licence.

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