India joins Wassenaar Arrangement

NEW DELHI, Dec. 9 (Xinhua) -- India has joined the Wassenaar Arrangement after completing the internal procedures, foreign ministry officials said Saturday.

The membership will facilitate high-technology tie-ups for the country's defence and space programmes.

"India has joined the Wassenaar Arrangement (WA) on Dec. 8, 2017 following the completion of internal procedures for joining the arrangement," a foreign ministry official said.

"The Plenary meeting of the WA held on Dec. 6-7, 2017 decided to admit India, which will become the arrangement's 42nd participating state."

India's Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj thanked the member states for their support for India's membership.

"India has been admitted as a member of Wassenaar Arrangement in the Wassenaar Arrangement plenary held in Vienna. We thank all the 41 Wassenaar Arrangement member states for their support," Swaraj said.

Swaraj described India's membership as the diplomatic success for India.

"This is the second diplomatic success for India for the membership of Export Control regimes. We became a member of MTCR in June 2016."

A statement issued by India's foreign ministry said India would like to thank Ambassador Jean Louis Falconi of France, 2017 Plenary Chair of the WA for his role in facilitating India's accession to the arrangement.

Wassenaar Arrangement is a multilateral export control regime (MECR) with 42 participating states including many former Comecon (Warsaw Pact) countries. Enditem