India signalled upgraded ties with North Korea, by sending Minister of State for Home Kiren Rijiju to participate in an event marking the North Korean national Independence Day
India’s bilateral ties with North Korea have been frosty for several decades mainly due to the latter’s close strategic ties with Pakistan.
rethink is part of a political consensus borne out of the long term interest of India.
North Korea is estimated to have one of the largest global deposits of minerals and rare earth metals necessary for India’s IT industry and electronic majors.
Diplomats are not ruling out the possibility that a dramatic change in bilateral ties like what the U.S. achieved with Iran and Cuba could possibly also occur in case of North Korea. “There is a rush for strategic resources in the countries like North Korea that were blockaded and sanctioned away from global economy. India should be an early bird in North Korea just in case North Korean economic ties with the world undergo change in near future,”
BBC has announced that it will start a service targeting North Korea in near future. BBC’s move shows that the world is impatient to reach out to North Korea.
A major factor that inhibited India’s steps towards the North Korean market in the past was the sensitivity of South Korea towards such a move.
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Among the permanent members, France was the closest to the Indian position, favouring the inclusion of India, Brazil, Japan and Germany (G-4) and an African representative as permanent members and expansion of the non-permanent category of members. France even expressed no objection to the veto power being extended to the new permanent members. The U.K. supported G-4 as the new permanent members, but without veto.
India and the G-4 have exhausted all the arguments in favour of expansion and they have to be more and more inventive in promoting their proposals. They have already made a compromise on the veto, the claim to which would be suspended for fifteen years or so.
G-4 has so far maintained a façade of unity, but each of them may be amenable to bilateral deals if any one of them becomes a liability for the other three. Germany has already toned down its demand for permanent membership because of over representation of Europe. This may well be the motive for France and U.K. also to support G-4.
India Position:
India has upgraded its claim to “right” and remained the leader of G-4. But there is a section of opinion that India’s position on the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and its border “disputes” with Pakistan and China might be impediments to its permanent membership.
The India-U.S. nuclear deal was expected to give de facto recognition to India’s nuclear status, but its non-NPT status came in the way of its entering the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) and the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR). No amount of extra effort by India can resolve the NPT, Pakistan and China issues in a hurry