India's attempt to open trade in nuclear material and technology, part of a U.S. agreement to help the south Asian country meet growing energy demands, may face obstacles in a meeting of the Nuclear Suppliers Group.

The 45-member Nuclear Suppliers Group is convening a two-day meeting in Vienna today to decide whether it will lift export restrictions against India. The group needs to vote unanimously for the ban, imposed after India tested its first nuclear weapon in 1974, to be lifted.

The 2005 U.S.-India accord, signed by President George W. Bush and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and endorsed by India's Parliament last month, would give India access to civil nuclear technology and allow it to import nuclear materials without joining the 1970 nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Diplomats attending the meeting declined to comment after being briefed by Indian Foreign Minister Shivshankar Menon.

``Like a number of countries we do have reservations about aspects of the content of the draft exemption recently circulated,'' New Zealand's minister for disarmament Phil Goff said in an interview with The Times of India published today.

China and some European countries oppose the deal because they are against supplying nuclear technology to atomic weapons states outside the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, Raja Mohan, an analyst on Indian security and professor at Singapore's Nanyang Technical University, said earlier this month.

The accord ``fails to bring India further into conformity with the nonproliferation behavior'' and the NSG must ``support measures that would avert further damage to the already beleaguered global nonproliferation and disarmament regime,'' arms control advocates wrote in an Aug. 15 letter, posted on the Web site of the Washington-based Arms Control Association.

Key Words: Nuclear Suppliers

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