Australia was seeking closer ties with India even though it had not firmed up its position on an exemption for India at the Nuclear Suppliers’ Group (NSG) and declined to sell uranium unless it signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

Speaking at the Observer Research Foundation (ORF) here on Tuesday, Australian High Commissioner John McCarthy said the sale of uranium to India was a “problem” because the new Labour government would abide by its pre-election promise of not supplying it to non-NPT signatories.

India refused to sign the NPT because it believed the treaty was discriminatory by allowing a handful of countries to retain nuclear weapons.

On Canberra’s stand at the NSG, the High Commissioner said: “The government is going to consider its position on the NSG. Some countries are in favour and some are opposed. Our position is still to be considered by the Ministers.”

“It is true that the previous government had said it would supply uranium to India. This government had a policy before the elections. It was restated [to Indian Special Envoy Shyam Saran] very clearly. But it doesn’t mean we like India any less than the previous government. The government is trying to say that India is very important but uranium is a problem for us,” he said.

On changing the architecture of the NPT to accommodate India, he said that while there was some support for this view in the U.S. and Europe, this was not so in Australia.

Asked whether the new government would play down the importance to security arrangements such as the one among Australia, the U.S. and Japan, he said, “I would be surprised if there is any attempt by the Labour government to change the structure irrespective of China’s views. After all when you meet with Russia and China, the U.S. gets excited.”

On the quadrilateral [India, U.S., Japan and Australia], he suggested that since it was an initiative by previous Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, the interaction of this grouping might not take place at a high level.

Diplomatic demarche

Last year the four nations along with a ship from Singapore took part in a massive naval exercise in the Bay of Bengal, triggering a diplomatic demarche by China to India.

The quadrilateral, he said, had elements of complication and controversies with India being interested but cautious. “[Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo] Fukuda is different from Mr. Abe. He has always sought to maintain a dialogue with China, does not visit the [controversial] Yasukuni shrine, not keen on historical revision of text books and has personal ties with the Chinese. My guess is that nobody wants to make the quadrilateral a big issue.”