"N-deal a golden chance for India"

THE CIVIL nuclear deal with the United States provides India with a "golden chance" to "accommodate itself" into a more legitimate international nonproliferation structure, Yasukuni Enoki, Japan's Ambassador in New Delhi, believes. In an interview to the Hindustan Times, Enoki, howevel: said that in the real world, 100 per cent results could not be achieved, pointing to the compromise implicit in the civil nuclear deal. "It is unthinkable for such a major, important power to remain an outsider to the nuclear non-proliferation regime. India will remain an excommunicated country and denied access to civil atomic energy technology and research (activities)," Enoki remarked. The ambassador: who leaves for home at the end of the month after a four-year tenure, said such an "outlaw" status for India was not healthy either for New Delhi or the international community To a question if he had any views on the domestic political debate in India on the civil nuclear deal, he said this was "very much a domestic issue" and he wished to abstain from joining this internal debate. Taking a philosophical approach, Enoki stated that India, as a country, always had "good balance": it had taken the middle path. According to him, debate and argument among ditTerent schools of thought was an "indispensable part of Indian culture". "India, eventually, has chosen with wisdom the best way So, I hope that through domestic arguments, India will reach a reasonable conclusion for the next step (in the nuclear deal)," he stressed. Turning to the international situation, Enoki made the pertinent point that barring one member of the five permanent members (P-5) of the United Nations' Security Council- China, Russia, Britain, France and the US had extended strong support to accommodate India. "I understand that this stance taken by four of the P-5 members is based on the belief that it is more conducive for world peace to accommodate India into the mainstream of international non-proliferation efforts."
From HT