India Enters MTCR

India becomes the 35th member of the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR) this week as the members of the international anti-proliferation grouping agreed to admit India in the regime,  this will burnish India’s credentials for the membership of the Nuclear Suppliers Group(NSG).

Many believe that India’s strategy was to first bag a membership of the other export control regime, MTCR, to make entry into NSG club easier. The ongoing five-nation visit of Modi includes three NSG countries — the US, Switzerland, and Mexico. Admission to the MTCR would open the way for India to buy high-end missile technology, also making more realistic its aspiration to buy surveillance drones such as the Predator, made by General Atomics.

Italy had objected to admitting India but, after an unrelated bilateral dispute was resolved, did not object this time within a 10-day deadline after the group’s chair, the Netherlands, wrote to members suggesting India be welcomed.

New Delhi has also applied to join the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), a 48-nation club that governs trade in commercial nuclear technology and was originally set up in response to India’s first atomic weapons test in 1974. Joining the NSG will be much more difficult because China is a member and has backed the membership aspirations of Pakistan, its ally and India’s arch-rival. Since 2008, India has been one of the five countries that are Unilateral Adherents to MTCR.