Dismantling core group, US eases India’s path to proliferation security

India, which has been debating the merits of joining the PSI, has been concerned about its two-tiered structure that seemed to differentiate between the core group and other members.

The core group refers to the few founding members of the PSI, which was launched by the United States in May 2003, and others like Singapore and Russia which joined later.

The core group, according to Joseph, was never conceived as an ‘‘exclusive club’’ within the PSI. Its objective, he said, was to lay out the basic terms of the initiative and open up the membership to others.

Joseph, the pointman for US non-proliferation policy in the State Department, was speaking at a seminar here on ‘South East Asia’s role in Non-Proliferation’.

More than 60 nations now participate in the PSI. The 11 founding members of the PSI were Australia, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Spain, the United Kingdom and the United States. Four other countries-Canada, Norway, Singapore and Russia were admitted later to the core group.

Joseph suggested that having defined the basic ‘‘principles of interdiction’’—the main function of the PSI—the maintenance of the core group was no longer necessary.

In any case, Joseph added, ‘‘The PSI must focus on activity, rather than on creating organisational structures.’’ The PSI is not a treaty but a cooperative arrangement to counter trafficking in WMD material and equipment. There are no plans, according to Joseph, to create a secretariat for the PSI.

India, whose ambiguity towards the PSI was partly influenced by the Russian opposition in May 2003, found to its surprise Moscow joining the initiative a year later. Once the Bush Administration addressed Moscow’s concerns on the legality of the PSI, Joseph said, Russia has become an active member.

This week Russia is joining a multinational naval exercise called ‘Deep Saber’ being hosted by Singapore. Other participants are the US, UK, France, Germany, Russia, Italy, the Netherlands, Greece, Japan, Australia, and New Zealand.

The exercises, focusing on a scenario of naval interdiction and port search in the South China Sea, are aimed at addressing the growing regional concerns about the threat of maritime terrorism involving weapons of mass destruction.

Other from the region—Vietnam, Malaysia and Brunei—are participating in the ‘Deep Saber’ as observers.

The only major power, other than India, which is currently outside the PSI, is China. Joseph said that while ‘‘China has neither joined the PSI nor endorsed it, Beijing has a better understanding of the legal basis of the initiative’’.

Joseph said about 17 multinational exercises of the PSI have been conducted so far. He noted that the biggest success of the PSI has been the busting, at the end of 2003, of the nuclear smuggling racket that was run for years by the Pakistani engineer A Q Khan.