US to back India's membership of Nuclear Suppliers Group

New Delhi: The United States could back India's membership of the 45-member Nuclear Suppliers Group or NSG.

This membership makes it easier for India to get dual-use technology from member countries though it's subject to rules of individual nations. It's also means India has a say in framing export control rules.

In a statement, Mike Froman, the Deputy National Security Advisor for International Economic Affairs says,  "...the United States will support India's full membership in the four multilateral export control regimes.  These are the Nuclear Suppliers Group; what's called the MTCR regime -- the Missile Technology Control Regime; the Australian Group; and the Wassanaar Arrangement."

These are groups of multilateral, dual use export control clubs. The Australia Group deals with chemical and biological weapons, and Wassenaar deals with conventional weapons and dual use technology in it.

"Now, this membership will come in a phased manner.  And we will consult with our regime members to encourage the evolution of a membership criteria of these regimes consistent with maintaining their core principles.  So as the membership criteria of these four regimes evolves, we intend to support India's full membership in them.  And at the same time, India will take steps to fully adopt the regime's export control requirements to reflect its prospective membership," Forman goes on to say recognising, "the nature of the strategic relationship we now have with India."
 
Three Indian entities will be taken off embargoed list - Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), Indian Space Research (ISR0) and the Hyderabad-headquartered Bharat Dynamics Limited (BDL).
 
"The second element of the export control reform package being announced is that we will remove India's defense and space-related entities from the U.S. entity list.  The entity list at one point had, I believe, 220 Indian entities on it.  And there are only four left.  And today we will be announcing a removal of three of them," the US statement says.