NEW DELHI: Norwegian Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Store said on Friday that his Government was "reserving its final position" on allowing India access to civilian nuclear technology through the Nuclear Suppliers' Group (NSG) route.

"Let me just say that we respect India's right to develop its nuclear energy resources. At the same time, we are emphasising the need to safeguard the international regime that can look after verification and monitoring of nuclear energy and nuclear materials," he said in an interview.

"We must be careful not to strike agreements which weaken this hard-won gain — the role of the International Atomic Energy Agency and the NPT [Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty] and so on," he said in implicit criticism of the India-U.S. civilian nuclear deal.

(Norway, along with Sweden, is among the countries known to have reservations about India's civilian nuclear initiative through cooperation with the U.S. The position of all members of the 45-nation NSG is critical to India since all decisions in this informal club are taken by "consensus.")

Asked whether India putting 14 nuclear reactors under IAEA safeguards was not a "positive" development, he said this was the "positive" side of the agreement. "Still, there are those [reactors] that remain on the outside."

On Norway's role in the war-like situation prevailing in Sri Lanka, Mr. Gahr Store stressed that Oslo was a facilitator not a mediator. So, no finger could be pointed at Norway. There was no future in pursuing a military solution.

The parties must be brought back to the political track, he added.

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