WASHINGTON – The United States has added seven Pakistani companies to alist of foreign entities that are subject to stringent export controlmeasures.
It could also undermine Pakistan’s ambition of joining the NSG.
The list identifies entities “reasonably believed to be involved, or topose a significant risk of being or becoming involved, in activitiescontrary to the national security or foreign policy interests of the UnitedStates”.
Three of the companies were listed for “their involvement in theproliferation of unsafeguarded nuclear activities that are contrary to thenational security and/or foreign policy interests of the United States”;two were found procuring supplies for nuclear-related entities already onthe list and last two were suspected to be fronts for listed entities. Aneighth Pakistani entity is based in Singapore.
The 23 additions, including 15 entities from the troubled South Sudan, werepublished by the US department of commerce’s Bureau of Industry andSecurity, which leads the multi-agency determination process, on Thursdayin the Federal Register, the American version of Gazette of India.
Although China and Turkey have cited procedural issues in adding newmembers to the NSG, both of them underline the ‘right of Pakistan’ toaspire to become a member of the club, which works on the principle ofconsensus to accept new members.
“We are not an NSG member, so we don’t exactly know what the deliberationsare at the group. But our non- proliferation credentials are unmatchedamong other claimants,” said a senior Indian official familiar with India’sengagement with export control regimes.
“We have a safeguard agreement with the International Atomic Agency (IAEA)and got a clean waiver from the NSG based on our clean track record. Weleave it to others to judge whether other claimants to NSG membership haverequisite credentials.”
NSG is the only major export control regime that India is not a part of;New Delhi is a member of the Missile Technology Control Regime, theAustralia Group and the Wassenaar Arrangement.