TOKYO: Japan is considering using its aid to pressure India and Pakistan to accede to the nuclear nonproliferation treaty (NPT).
A report in the evening edition of “Asahi Shimbun” said the Japanese foreign office was examining a strategy to apply its ODA (official development assistance) pressure on those receiving Japanese aid to force them to sign NPT.
The report said the targets in effect were India and Pakistan since a few others which were still outside the NPT club were in the process of joining it.
The matter the report added was expected to be discussed at the next fiscal year’s ODA meetings with respective receiving countries.
According to present thinking the report said the countries would first be urged to join NPT but if they decline aid would be frozen at the previous year’s quantum. In the following years there would be progressive reduction in the aid if the receiving countries continued to resist.
Asahi report said a section within the Japanese foreign office viewed application of aid pressure as an act of interference in internal affairs of a country especially where its security is concerned
Recently there were reports that the Japanese ODA would be conditional upon the size of a receiving country’s defence budget.
Earlier as Japan’s own environmental track records came under increasing global criticism it said agencies began to introduce ecological considerations in their economic assistance and India’s Narmada river valley project came to receive special attention.
Japan’s India’s foremost source of aid and for Pakistan it is the number-two donor during the recent Afghan war Pakistan was considered a frontline nation receiving special aid as suggested by the United States.
Article extracted from this publication >> April 12, 1991
