nuclear-news

The nuclear deal has been straddling the fences, certainly, not for lack of political will but a variety of domestic factors at play, particularly in Japan.

In December 2015, the Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his Indian counterpart announced an in-principle decision to cooperate on civil nuclear matters which would facilitate export of Japanese civil nuclear technology to India.

The joint statement stated that the two Prime Ministers welcomed the agreement “for cooperation in the peaceful uses of nuclear energy, and confirmed that this agreement will be signed after the technical details are finalised, including those related to the necessary internal procedures”.

But why haven’t both the countries yet put pen to paper?……..

It is important to see what is driving Japan to consider nuclear commerce with India, a country that has not signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).  If it does, it will be a first for Japan.  If the nuclear agreement is signed, it would amount to Tokyo accepting the de facto status of India as a nuclear weapon power. …….

Japan’s history will make it difficult for it to accept this and develop a full-fledged nuclear cooperation agreement.  This will especially be the case due to Japan’s domestic context where there is a large public antipathy to nuclear weapons.

Japan’s general anti-nuclear sentiment will continue to be a stumbling block in realising the full potential of the relationship in this regard.  The fact that the bilateral negotiations on nuclear cooperation have gone on for several years is indicative of how lukewarm Japanese sentiment is to this type of cooperation. …….

 the deal is important for more than one reason. Signing of the India-Japan nuclear agreement will pave way for the operationalisation of India’s agreement with Westinghouse, a US unit of Toshiba Corporation.

But the negotiations have gone on for so long that New Delhi may be beginning to lose interest. http://www.outlookindia.com/website/story/when-modi-flies-to-japan-bleak-chances-for-long-pending-nuclear-deal/297317