Notwithstanding Japan's decision to cooperate with India in the civil nuclear sector, Prime
Minister Naoto Kan Monday said his government would step up efforts to rope in New Delhi to sign the NPT.
Speaking to the media in Nagasaki after a commemorative ceremony to mark the 65th anniversary of its destruction by a US atomic bomb, Kan commented on his government's recent
decision to initiate talks with India in the civilian nuclear field.
"We will pay sufficient attention to the issue of nuclear disarmament and nonproliferation and step up our efforts to get India to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty," Kan was quoted as saying by Kyodo news agency.
In the past, Japan had declined to cooperate with India in the civil nuclear front since New Delhi has not signed the NPT.
India says it will not sign the NPT as it is flawed and discriminatory in nature.
Senior officials from India and Japan had met in Tokyo for the first round of talks in June seeking to find a way to seal a bilateral civilian nuclear cooperation pact.
Meanwhile, the Japanese Prime Minister also said that he wants to consider enshrining into law Japan's three non- nuclear principles of not possessing, producing or introducing nuclear weapons in the country's territory, which is currently a national policy.
"I would like to consider enshrining the principles into law," Kan said.
Japan -- the only country that has suffered US atom bomb attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of World War II -- maintains an official policy of not possessing or producing nuclear weapons, and not allowing them on its territory.
Nagasaki was devastated when the US dropped a plutonium bomb nicknamed "Fat Man" on August 9, 1945. The bomb claimed over 70,000 lives.