NEW DELHI: The United States has assured India that it will not be punished with sanctions if it refuses to sign a global treaty banning nuclear test blasts, diplomats said recently. The U.S. assurance, communicated to the Indian government in a letter from Secretary of State Warren Christopher, was aimed at persuading Delhi to drop a threat to block the test ban pact being negotiated in Geneva, they said. Washington has urged Delhi not to veto the treaty even if it decided it could not sign the accord. Christopher’s letter, delivered recently to Foreign Minister I.K. Gujral by the U.S. ambassador to India, Frank Wisner, addressed India’s concerns that it might suffer punitive measures if it refused to ratify the treaty. India has said it will not sign the proposed accord because it would not commit the five declared nuclear powers— Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States — to a nuclear disarmament timetable. Delhi also objects to a, provision which would require those five nations, as well as the three nuclear “threshold” states — India, Israel and Pakistan to ratify the treaty before it would become international law. India claims the clause, called the entry in to force provision, would infringe on its sovereignty.
Earlier this month the United States agreed to meet China’s demand to make it more difficult to launch international onsite inspections under the treaty. A U.S. diplomatic source in Geneva said that in return, Beijing agreed to use its influence on Pakistan to join the pact. Gujral, according to reports, asked Wisner why delegates refused to agree to India’s request for a last-minute change in the entry in to force provision, whereas they had accepted China’s demand for a change in the verification section. “The response is that all nations feel the verification provision needed to be strengthened, but nobody agrees with India on entry in to force,” the diplomat said.
Article extracted from this publication >> August 21, 1996
