Japan to step up efforts to bring India into NPT fold: Kan

Nagasaki, Aug 9 (PTI) Notwithstanding Japan's decision to
cooperate with India in the civil nuclear sector, Prime
Minister Naoto Kan Monday said his government would step up
efforts to rope in New Delhi to sign the NPT.
Speaking to the media in Nagasaki after a commemorative
ceremony to mark the 65th anniversary of its destruction by a
US atomic bomb, Kan commented on his government's recent
decision to initiate talks with India in the civilian nuclear
field.
"We will pay sufficient attention to the issue of nuclear
disarmament and nonproliferation and step up our efforts to
get India to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty," Kan
was quoted as saying by Kyodo news agency.
In the past, Japan had declined to cooperate with India
in the civil nuclear front since New Delhi has not signed the
NPT.
India says it will not sign the NPT as it is flawed and
discriminatory in nature.
Senior officials from India and Japan had met in Tokyo
for the first round of talks in June seeking to find a way to
seal a bilateral civilian nuclear cooperation pact.
Meanwhile, the Japanese Prime Minister also said that
he wants to consider enshrining into law Japan's three non-
nuclear principles of not possessing, producing or introducing
nuclear weapons in the country's territory, which is currently
a national policy.
"I would like to consider enshrining the principles
into law," Kan said.
Japan -- the only country that has suffered US atom
bomb attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of World War
II -- maintains an official policy of not possessing or
producing nuclear weapons, and not allowing them on its
territory.
Nagasaki was devastated when the US dropped a plutonium
bomb nicknamed "Fat Man" on August 9, 1945. The bomb claimed
over 70,000 lives. PTI AKJ
MYR