US puts seven Pak companies on list for export control
INDIA UPBEAT Trump administration’s step seen as a blow to neighbour’s NSG ambitions, boosts India’s own hopes
United States has added seven Pakistani companies to a list of foreign entities that are subject to stringent export control measures, a move that Indian officials said would boost New Delhi’s bid to join the nuclear suppliers group (NSG), an elite club of countries that deal with trade in fissile materials and nuclear technologies. It could also undermine Pakistan’s ambition of joining the NSG.
The list identifies entities ‘reasonably believed to be involved, or to pose a significant risk of being or becoming involved, in activities contrary to the national security or foreign policy interests of the United States”.
Three of the companies were listed for “their involvement in the proliferation of unsafeguarded nuclear activities that are contrary to the national security and/or foreign policy interests of the United States”; two were found procuring supplies for nuclear-related entities
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already on the list and last two were suspected to be fronts for listed entities. An eighth Pakistani entity is based in Singapore.
The 23 additions, including 15 from the troubled South Sudan, were published by the US department of commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security, which leads the multi-agency determination process, on Thursday in the Federal Register, the American version of Gazette of India.
Although China and Turkey have cited procedural issues in adding new members to the NSG, both of them underline the ‘right of Pakistan’ to aspire to become a member of the club, which works on the principle of consensus to accept new members.