EU non-committal on backing India on nuclear, UNSC issues
New Delhi (PTI): European Union (EU) on Friday remained non-committal on supporting India in its quest for civil nuclear energy and permanent membership of UN Security Council.
Portuguese Prime Minister and current President of the EU Jose Socrates said the bloc was watching the ongoing negotiations related to the Indo-US nuclear deal.
"Of course, we understand the importance of use of nuclear technology in India. India's demand for energy is growing. We totally understand that," he said at a joint press conference with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh after their Summit talks when asked about EU position on the nuclear deal.
Pointing out that the issue figured in the Summit talks, he underlined the EU policy that use of nuclear technology needed to be regulated, for which NPT was the "key convention".
"It is necessary to (make) compromise for guarantee of safety in use of nuclear technology for those who use it and others as well," he said, adding "we are trying to achieve that compromise."
On whether EU would support India's aspiration for permanent membership of UN Security Council, Socrates said he could make no such commitment on behalf of 27 countries as there was no common position on this.
"The EU has no common position on the future Security Council. Twentyseven countries have different opinions," he said.
He, however, added that the UN reforms were necessary to make it "more representative" as the world today was quite different from that of 1945 when the international body was formed.
National
