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HVK Archives: India hits out at critics of its nuclear tests

India hits out at critics of its nuclear tests - The Observer

India Abroad News Service ()
September 24, 1998

Title: India hits out at critics of its nuclear tests
Author: India Abroad News Service
Publication: The Observer
Date: September 24, 1998

India hit back at the critics of its May nuclear tests,
especially the developed world, at a crucial international meet
on nuclear issues here.

In a message to the annual general conference of the
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the Prime Minister,
Mr Atal Bihari Vajpayee, stressed that the Indian tests were not
intended as offence but were for self-defence.

The message was read out by Mr R Chidambaram, the Chairman of
the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), and head of the Indian
delegation to the conference.

Mr Chidambaram alleged in his address that the non-nuclear
nations taking the lead in criticising India's tests were
"surrogate nuclear weapon states" as they enjoyed the security
of the nuclear umbrella of a recognised nuclear power.

"Interestingly, none of them (the 'surrogate nuclear weapons
states') is a developing country and worryingly, the attitude of
many of them smacks of a new kind of colonialism through
technology control," Chidambaram said.

The week-long conference, being attended by more than 100
nations, is the first major global meet devoted solely to the
nuclear issue since India and Pakistan tested nuclear devices.

The IAEA, under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), aims
to promote peaceful uses of nuclear technology and ensuring that
it is not used by countries other than the five recognised
nuclear powers to develop nuclear weapons.

Chidambaram said that the focus of the IAEA conference should be
on issues like nuclear-generated power and not on the
"extraneous political issues" related to nuclear weapons, which
would be better dealt with by the conference on disarmament in
Geneva.

India, however, offered a global no-first-use pact on nuclear
weapons. Vajpayee, in his message, reiterated New Delhi's offer
to legalise its proposal not to use nuclear weapons first in a
conflict. "We are willing to strengthen this unilateral
commitment by entering into bilateral agreements on no-first-use
or multilateral negotiations on global no first use, the Prime
Minister said.

India and Pakistan, therefore, faced a barrage of criticism and
pressure to move towards nuclear non-proliferation. "You have
undermined world peace, sign the non-proliferation treaties,"
was the common refrain to the two nations as delegate after
delegate took to the floor.

Even though both India and Pakistan are not signatories to the
1970 NPT and the 1996 Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) and
therefore claim they have not violated any law, such arguments
were rejected by other countries at the IAEA meeting.

The representative of Australia, in what was the strongest and
longest speech on the issue, claimed the tests by India and
Pakistan have challenged the "basic norm of the non-
proliferation regime - that world security is better served with
fewer rather than greater numbers of nuclear weapons and of
states which embrace them."

Japan, Canada, the United States, the 15-member European Union
(EU), Iran and South Africa also spoke against the tests. India
and Pakistan are also under pressure to sign the NPT and the
CTBT - treaties that New Delhi has castigated as being.
"discriminatory".

Australia was in the forefront in making demands beyond New
Delhi and Islamabad signing these two treaties. Its
representative said that the two nations should put all nuclear
facilities under the IAEA safeguards and accept the new,
enhanced safeguard system of the agency which seeks to ensure
that countries do not have any clandestine nuclear programmes.
The real test of strength between the critics and the nascent
nuclear powers, India and Pakistan, would come towards the end
of the conference when it takes up the matter of a resolution co-
sponsored by Australia, Canada, Japan and New Zealand.

Delegates are tight-lipped about the contents of the resolution,
which is expected to be supported by more countries, but one
source said that it would not stop at merely an expression of
"concern" or "condemnation". The source said that it might go
further and demand that India and Pakistan signed the global non-
proliferation treaties. If India and Pakistan were unable to
block the passage of the resolution, it would be a significant
political victory for their critics, diplomats here said.

Meanwhile PTI adds that India plans to procure light water
reactors (LWR) from "friendly" countries as part of a strategy
to achieve the targeted nuclear power generation of 20,000 mw by
2020 AD.


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