NEW DELHI: Expecting India to play a major global role once NSG approves the Indo-US civil nuclear deal, Japan on Tuesday said New Delhi will have to address disarmament and non-proliferation issue to demonstrate "authenticity" of its peace diplomacy.

Describing the disarmament and non-proliferation issue as "extremely difficult" task for India along with resolution of Kashmir issue and its relations with Pakistan, Tokyo said New Delhi will have to address these for its "peace development diplomacy".

Japanese Ambassador to India Yasukuni Enoki said he expected that India would advance its "active diplomacy vis-a-vis two difficult issues, namely the Kashmir problem and its relations with Pakistan as well as nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation."

In an address at FICCI here, he said addressing the nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation issues "may be the touchstone to prove the authencity of the Indian Peace Development Diplomacy with highly esteemed ideals".

Taking an overview of developments that took place during his four-year tenure here ending next month, the envoy said "though both issues are extremely difficult to resolve, India cannot go without addressing them if India tries to undertake the initiative for peace development diplomacy."

In this regard, he stressed the importance of a "leadership country" demonstrating model cases to others.

He, however, expects New Delhi to be a major player in concerted action towards nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament once the Indo-US deal is approved by the NSG, paving the way for widening of cooperation in the field between India and Japan.

"Regarding nuclear issues, India may have had a sort of paranoia that the whole international community is only pressurising it as a result of the 1998 nuclear test and the subsequent economic sanctions imposed," Enoki said.

"However, once the India-US civil atomic energy agreement is authorised by the Nuclear Suppliers Group, the status of India in relation to IAEA or NPT regime will be clearly dictated, departing from the current precarious one as a member outsider to the NPT regime," the Japanese envoy said.

He said India was expected to be a "rather major player for the international concerted action towards nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament". Thus, the cooperation in these fields between India and Japan "will undoubtedly be much widened", Enoki said.

On the Indo-Pak relations, he said these had "much improved since 2002 crisis" and are following the right path. In the speech, the envoy referred to challenges for India while delving on various aspects, including its economy, secularism, spirit of tolerance and man-nature relationship.

"India will undoubtedly be a major economic power in the 21st century," he said, but added that it should not be achieved at the cost of "disrupted" environment.

"I really hope that India would be a global leader to guide the international community towards economic development, harmonizing the attainment of well-being along with co-existence with nature, reflecting its traditional wisdom, (and) teaching that human being is only a part of the universe."

He expected India to present its own model of economic development in harmony with environment protection and "lead the world in this direction".