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India will sign CTBT if P-5 guarantees total disarmament

India could sign the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, provided the five nuclear powers sign an undertaking signalling their commitment to the total elimination of nuclear weapons.

Senior officials at the ministry of external affairs indicated that in the wake of the voluntary moratorium on further nuclear tests declared by Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, New Delhi's stand on the CTBT has drawn appreciation in the international community, including among highly influential sections of the United States polity.

The MEA will, however, adhere to India's constant line that it will not sign the CTBT in its present form. India has consistently argued that the CTBT as it exists is geared in favour of the five nuclear powers, and hence is discriminatory in nature.

It is understood that New Delhi has expressed willingness to sign the CTBT given the above guarantee is the result of recent interaction with Russia. The two countries have been in constant touch since the May 11 nuclear tests in Pokhran.

Brajesh Mishra, principal secretary to the prime minister, is scheduled to visit Moscow this week, to consult with the Russian leadership. MEA officials indicate that Russia is increasingly disenchanted with China's visible pro-Pakistan tilt, and has in fact conveyed its displeasure to both Beijing and Islamabad. Russia, further, indicated to the P-5, during the recent summit in Geneva, that if the China-Pakistan missile and nuclear nexus continued unchecked, India could not be blamed for taking appropriate steps to safeguard its own security.

It was in fact Russia's strong stand on the subject of the China-Pak nexus that compelled the US, UK and France to tone down the communique issued at the end of the meeting of foreign ministers of the five nuclear powers in Geneva last week.

The Russian leadership is increasingly expressing itself in strong terms against the Clinton administration's apparent "ignorance" of the Chinese missile shipment to Islamabad. Charging the US with aiding and abetting Chinese involvement in Pakistan's military and nuclear programmes, the Russian leadership reportedly reassured New Delhi that it was keeping a close watch on the situation.

MEA officials are also increasingly highlighting the recent sale, by the German firm NTG, of advanced dual-role technology to Pakistan. This technology is useful in upgrading Pakistan's nuclear programme and giving it thermonuclear capability, analysts say. Even the famed Max Planck Institute has been giving Pakistan nuclear intricacies albeit in an advisory capacity, MEA spokesmen further point out.

The MEA line is that all this merely emphasises the double standards being set by the industrialised and nuclear nations, which were openly flouting the provisions of the various non-proliferation treaties.

Thus, argues the ministry of external affairs, India sees no logic behind the CTBT, and will stick to its refusal to sign it in its present form, and in the absence of a written guarantee pertaining to full disarmament.

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