MOSCOW: Fresh from the success of their combined efforts in Palling out Ukraine’s nuclear teeth, Russia and the United States have “Wasted little time in formulating Plans to put braces on the other so called renegade States, including India and Pakistan.

In one of the Key joint statements issued at the end of the two-day Summit here last week between Presidents Boris Yeltsin and Bill Clinton, India and Pakistan have been identified   among those countries in the world which pose the greatest risk of proliferation of nuclear weapons and missile Systems, along with the two Koreas and countries in the Middle East.

Mr. Yeltsin and Mr-Clinton have called for energetic measures to reduce the acute threat and have thrown their weight behind the creation of a multilateral forum for arms control in non-proliferation and strengthening regional Security in South Asia. In the past years, Pakistan has pushed for acceptance of a five-nation initiative based on multilateral talks with China, Russia and the US that aims at a nuclear free weapons zone in South Asia.

The lengthy statement said, “The Presidents of the two countries agreed that, in addition to strengthening global norms of non-proliferation and working out agreements in this effect close cooperation’s essential in order to develop policies on non-proliferation applicable to specific regions posing the greatest risk of proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and their means of delivery.

India and Pakistan have been called upon to join the negotiations and become original signatories of a treaty banning nuclear weapons test explosions and a proposed convention to ban production of fissile material for nuclear explosives.

The focus is now clearly on enforcing the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) of which neither India nor Pakistan is signatories. All countries which have not signed the NPT have been urged to do so in Friday’s statement. The pact which comes up for renewal in 1995 is described as the foundation of a joint Russian US program for its indefinite and unconditional extension. Disagreements between Russia and India on non-proliferation and human rights issues came to the fore during the visit here last October by Indian Foreign Secretary JN. Dixit when it is likely that he was given an indication of the drafting of the statement which has been released. There is now no feds on to believe that these differences will lessen.

In the context of the latest statement which is said to embrace and Articulate in one document recent years of summit level meetings between Russia and the US India’s response: will probably reiterate its long-held view of the non-universal and therefore discriminatory character of the NPT and the MTCR which are based on a two tier system of haves and have not’s that largely mirror global economic realities.

New Delhi may react to the spelt out need for the establishment of a Multilateral forum for arms control in South Asia with the reply that it has never objected to multi-lateral formats, but is unwilling to Consider the five-nation initiative put forward by Islamabad that is bound by a regional dimension. AS a model for emulation, India can cite the 1990 Chemical Weapons Convention which is universal and non-discriminatory.

Article extracted from this publication >> January 21, 1994