NEW DELHI: India does not object to any country joining the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) on merit, including Pakistan, Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj said here on Sunday. She did not, however, say if Islamabad merited the membership in the way New Delhi regards its own bid.

Both have refused to sign the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT) or the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) for one reason or the other, which NSG members opposed to India’s bid have cited as an impediment.

The issue is expected to be part of a meeting Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi hopes to have with Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of a two-day summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation in Tashkent. The summit is to begin on June 23.

Chinese analysts have spoken of India’s NSG quest, and US President Barack Obama’s support to it, as potentially hitting a raw nerve in Pakistan.

In fact, Ms Swaraj’s comments on India’s NSG prospects followed an announced visit by Foreign Secretary S. Jaishankar to Beijing on June 16 and 17. Ms Swaraj said he was there for bilateral consultations with his Chinese counterpart.

“All major issues, including India’s NSG membership, were discussed.”

India, Ms Swaraj added, was trying to ensure that it becomes a member of the NSG by the end of this year. According to her, the NSG entry is crucial for India’s energy policy. China, she claimed, was not protesting India’s membership bid, but was only talking of criteria and procedure.

She was confident China would eventually back India, quite possibly when the issue comes up for discussion at the NSG’s plenary meeting in Seoul on June 23.

The Indian government was “hopeful of success in convincing China” by then, indicating that Beijing would not wish to go against the consensus. Turkey, Ireland and New Zealand are among the opponents of India’s NSG quest.

“I think a consensus is being made, and I don’t think any country will break that consensus, and this time we will get the NSG membership,” Ms Swaraj said, adding that she had personally spoken to 23 of the 48 countries in the NSG.

In other remarks concerning Pakistan she made at the annual news conference, Ms Swaraj said though India had difficult issues to resolve with Pakistan, there was ease and warmth in the relations between the two at present.

The news conference was meant to highlight her ministry’s achievements in the last two years, which according to Pakistani analysts have been anything but stable in their bilateral aspect with Islamabad.

She said India’s National Investigating Agency team probing the Pathankot terrorist attack had not been denied permission to go to Pakistan. Pakistan had only asked for time to conduct a proper probe at its end, she said.

About prospects for Foreign Secretary-level talks with Pakistan, she maintained they had not been cancelled. “We are only awaiting a probe from Pakistan side on the Pathankot attack.”

India has conveyed to China its views against Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi and Masood Azhar, saying that not letting the two be named by the UN was an obstruction in the global fight against terrorism.

Ms Swaraj seemed to toned down the bear hug Mr Modi is perceived to have given to the United States several times, often at the cost of ties with Beijing.

India’s engagement with the United States has increased, Ms Swaraj admitted, but it is not at the cost of the nation’s interest. “We also stage protests against them as and when required,” she said. She also underscored that India wanted a peaceful settlement of the South China Sea dispute.

Published in Dawn, June 20th, 2016