Pakistan has alleged that the process for membership of Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) has become too politicised.
According to a report in ‘Dawn’, Pakistan, however, has said that it is open to separating its civilian and military nuclear facilities and signing the additional protocol to International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA) safeguards agreement.
“We have told the international community that if this is an objective criteria, we can do it because we don’t have any intent to mix civilian and military fuel cycle service. Those cycles are already separate,” Director Strategic Plans Division (SPD) Dr Adil Sultan said on Friday while speaking at a round table conference at the Strategic Vision Institute (SVI) on the criteria proposed by Ambassador Rafael Grossi, the facilitator of the discussion in NSG on membership for non-NPT countries.
“We can also agree to additional protocol if it is only about civilian programme,” he added.
Dr Sultan further said that technically Pakistan’s civilian and military programmes were already separate and only procedural process was required to notify that to the IAEA.
He alleged that the intent behind the proposed criteria is “not to have a separation plan, but to throw up a road block against Pakistan’s candidature. … it’s politically motivated”.
