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Albright breaks her silence, calls tests 'grave historical error'

US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright has harshly criticised ''the leaders in New Delhi,'' stating that their decision to conduct five nuclear tests was a ''grave historical error''.

In an address before the US Coast Guard Academy in New London, Connecticut, last evening, she called upon both India and Pakistan to sign the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty immediately.

She said the choice India made last week did not reflect that nation's greatness, but rather a reckless disregard for the world opinion and for India's own reputation.

In her first formal reaction to India's nuclear tests, she said the decision was ''dangerous because it could ignite an arms race with no visible finish line between India and Pakistan, who have fought three wars in the last 51 years, and who remain bitterly divided over Kashmir and other issues".

''India's rash action is sure to heighten security tensions throughout southern Asia, and other nations may be tempted to follow India's wrongheaded example,'' she added.

Albright recalled how strongly US President Bill Clinton had condemned the nuclear tests. Consistent with US law, he had imposed an array of economic sanctions that would cost India dearly, she added.

Albright said Clinton and other world leaders had made it plain to India's government that exploding nuclear devices was a way to lose -- not win -- international respect.

''India wants to be considered a great nation. But India was already a great nation with which we were actively pursuing a warmer and more wide-ranging relationship,'' she said, adding, ''I personally conveyed this message to India's previous (Gujral) government during my visit six months ago, while reconfirming our warning that a decision to test nuclear weapons would have serious consequences.''

Although the superpower rivalry between East and West had ended, the danger posed by nuclear weapons plainly had not. ''Evidence of this was provided last week by India's unjustified and unwise decision to conduct explosive nuclear tests,'' she added.

In recent days, she pointed out, the administration had been consulting intensively with top officials in Pakistan, who in the wake of India's ''provocation,'' face strong public pressure to conduct their own nuclear tests.

''For Pakistan's government this is a difficult and defying challenge. But it is also an unprecedented opportunity, if Pakistan's leaders do not test, they will defy India's expectations and foil India's desire to drag Pakistan's world standing down. They will pull South Asia back from an arms competition that nations there cannot afford and might not survive,'' she observed.

Albright said, ''They will demonstrate confidence in Pakistan's military, which it merits. They will avoid costly economic sanctions. And, they will show a level of maturity and responsibility India's current leaders have not. By so doing, they will earn precisely the kind of international respect that India apparently yearns for and its people deserve, but which its leaders have so heedlessly thrown away.''

She said the administration would work hard with the US Congress, whose view of South Asia was already changing to respond to Pakistan's economic and security concerns.

''Even beyond the events in South Asia, our strategy for minimising the nuclear danger to our citizens is broad, comprehensive and increasingly ambitious. In the weeks ahead, I will be working with my administration colleagues and the leaders in the Congress to identify new steps and to fully implement our prior initiatives,'' she added.

''We are determined to seize the opportunity history has presented to reduce further the roles and risks of nuclear weapons. There could be no greater gift to the future,'' she added.

UNI

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