DISARMAMENT-INDIA: Indian Nuclear Tests Criticised

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

UNITED NATIONS, May 11 1998 (IPS) - U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan criticised India Monday following New Delhi’s surprise announcement it had conducted three nuclear explosive tests, the first since 1974.

Annan said that the tests, conducted in the desert some 530 kms southwest of the Indian capital, had broken a “de facto moratorium on nuclear testing,” in effect for more than two years.

“While noting that India is not a signatory to the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), the Secretary-General is nevertheless concerned that the latest testing is inconsistent with the pattern which has been firmly endorsed by the international community,” said U.N. spokesman Juan Carlos Brandt.

“He calls on all states for maximum restraint … (and) strongly supports accelerated measures of nuclear disarmament, cessation of all nuclear tests by all states, and strengthening of the nuclear non-proliferation regime,” Brandt added.

In Washington, U.S. officials were “deeply disturbed” by the news and were “seeking clarification from the Indian government regarding what…obviously is a very, very negative development,” according to State Department spokesman James Rubin.

Washington had urged New Delhi not to respond to Pakistan’s recent testing of a medium-range missile, Rubin told reporters, and now was weighing its options with India – including sanctions.

“There are a number of U.S. sanction laws that potentially apply to a non-nuclear weapons state that detonates a nuclear explosive device,” he said, and India could be considered just such a state.

After learning of the Indian explosions Monday, officials in Washington urged Pakistan to refrain from responding with a nuclear test of its own but “we certainly are not going to speculate on what result this will have on the region,” Rubin said.

U.N. officials, however, concluded the tests will heat up the arms race in Asia. The blasts were conducted by a coalition government led by the right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which pledged to “induct” nuclear weapons as a main part of its platform in elections earlier this year.

“I wouldn’t want to be in (Pakistani Prime Minister) Nawaz Sharif’s shoes,” said one official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. “No matter what he does now, it will be a difficult response.”

Pakistan, like India, is believed to have nuclear weapons capability – although neither country has formally declared it. Both have stayed outside the 1970 nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). The two countries have fought three wars in the past 50 years, and remain entangled in a low-intensity conflict over the disputed region of Kashmir.

Now that India has tested its nuclear weapons, the U.N. official said, domestic political pressure will be on Sharif to conduct a test – if Pakistan can.

Other analysts were not even sure whether the tests had been staged to send a message to Pakistan or to warn China, India’s other main regional nemesis.

The Indian tests occurred just two weeks after Defense Minister George Fernandes warned of a need to deter what he claimed was the “encirclement” of India by Beijing and its allies, and argued that China was a much more important military threat than Pakistan.

New Delhi itself has offered little information about the tests, and did not comment on their timing. Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee said they involved one fission device, one low-yield device and one thermonuclear device.

“I warmly congratulate the scientists and engineers who have carried out these successful tests,” Vajpayee, in office since March, said in New Delhi.

The tests certainly show that India’s hard-line nuclear stance has not softened since 1996, when New Delhi refused to approve the CTBT, an agreement which would ban all nuclear test explosions. India’s action effectively blocked the treaty from being passed by the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva, and has kept the treaty’s fate in limbo ever since the U.N. General Assembly approved the agreement later that year.

Under the CTBT’s terms, several nations thought to have nuclear weapons capability – including India, Pakistan and Israel, all of which are believed to be undeclared nuclear weapons states – must sign the treaty before it can enter into force.

Indian Ambassador Arundhati Ghose made clear two years ago that “we will never sign the treaty, and it will not go into force.” Pakistan has added that it will not sign the CTBT if India stays out – effectively ensuring that the treaty will always lack two of the main signatures it requires.