Eight months after reaching an accord — the first of its kind for Japan with a country that is not a signer of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty — a landmark agreement between India and Japan on nuclear power cooperation goes into effect Friday.
The agreement, signed in November 2016, took six years to reach. It was ratified by Japan's lower house in May and by the upper house – the House of Councillors – in June.
According to the World Nuclear Association, diplomatic notes sent and received by Japan's ambassador to India Kenji Hiramatsu and India's foreign secretary Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, acknowledged the occasion, which formerly marks another milestone for India, which has spent decades being shunned by other modern countries in the area of nuclear power due to its status as a non-signer of the NPT.
The deal signed with Japan specifically forbids India to use any of the technology advanced in the treaty – any Japanese technology – for the purpose of constructing or designing nuclear weapons.
It also mandates International Atomic Energy Agency inspections as a watchdog agency to monitor the agreement.