Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, who is on a three-day visit to India, said on Saturday that they will send their top negotiator to New Delhi for a discussion on India's admission to the Nuclear Suppliers Group. Wang held a three-hour-long meeting with External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and Foreign Secretary S Jaishankar during which it was also decided that the Directors General of Disarmament of the two countries will meet soon, reported The Indian Express.
A government official said, “It was a positive meeting where both were trying to find ways to accommodate each other’s concerns.”
China’s move comes after the country had openly refused India’s membership to 48-nation group, which monitors and controls the export of materials or technology that can be used to create nuclear weapons, during the NSG plenary meeting in Seoul. Recently, a commentary in Chinese state-run news agency had said that the door to India's membership to NSG was "not tightly closed".
On June 23, at least five countries had blocked India's NSG membership bid in Seoul during a plenary meeting of the group. Ireland, Turkey, Brazil, Austria and New Zealand – and later Switzerland – had joined China in opposing India's attempts to be part of the body, saying it was ineligible because it was not a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
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