The Australian Labor Party has just endorsed, albeit narrowly, Prime Minister Julia Gillard's call to lift the contentious policy of the ban on uranium sales to India, although the latter is not a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
New Delhi's position is that this is a matter for Australians to decide, Australia's uranium is not crucial to India's peaceful nuclear program, but the bilateral relationship can hardly be expected to progress to any sort of strategic level as long as the ban remains in place for India while exports are possible to China.
There is merit to New Delhi's contention that its record on nonproliferation as a non-NPT signatory is better than China's as an NPT party.
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