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No more tests planned, says Vajpayee

Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee has said that no more nuclear tests are being planned by India.

In an interview to Outlook magazine over the weekend, the prime minister removed all doubts whether India is already weaponised or in the process of weaponisation by saying, ''India is a nuclear weapon power.''

He hoped that relations with China will not be in for rough times, despite the strong reaction by the Chinese. ''After all, the Chinese themselves went for nuclear weapons claiming that they were necessary to ensure their security.''

Asked if a meeting between him and Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharief would be useful at this point of time, Vajpayee said, ''We have always stressed that issues are best resolved through dialogue and discussion.''

On the future of the foreign secretary-level dialogue, the prime minsiter said, ''Pakistan has to respond to our proposals given to them in Dhaka in January this year.''

Responding to a question about US President Bill Clinton's harsh words against India at Berlin in which he called the tests a 'terrible mistake', Vajpayee said, ''We expected a better understanding of our security interests.''

The prime minister, asked to clarify the stand taken by the government on signing the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, said, ''This is a matter of negotiations. We will not disclose our position in advance.''

He denied that the coalition government had made any promise in its national agenda for governance that nuclear weapons will be inducted only after a strategic defence review.

Asked whether the government had rushed into the nuclear tests after being in power for only 50 days, Vajpayee said, ''This is absolutely untrue. The one and only reason for undertaking the tests was to ensure our security and to let the people of India and the world know that we have a credible deterrent.''

The prime minister said, ''Sanctions will have a limited impact for a short while.''

Whether the government had any strategy to deal with India's international isolation, he said, ''Mostly those countries which possess nuclear weapons or enjoy the shade of the nuclear umbrella have criticised us. This is a classic case of double standards. Let them search their hearts and then tell us if we have done anything worse than what they have done for the last 50 years.''

UNI

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