NEW DELHI: Indian Prime Minister VP Singh is visiting Moscow later this month but differences over nuclear arms proliferation are showing up disagreeably even as the 20 year friendship treaty is due for renewal in less than 13 months.
India is not a synatory to the nonproliferation treaty (NPT) but the Russians had soft peddled the issue in the past a weeks ago Isuestia the soviet govt newspaper chided India for not syning the NPT and for not responding to a Pakistan proposed South Asian NPT.
Two years ago there was a significant shift in the soviet attitude to regional NPTs. Gorbachev endorsed a proposal for a nuclear free zone in the South Pacific.
India’s stand that the NPT is discriminatory towards the have not because it checks to check horizontal proliferation is no longer tenable to the soviets. As far as regional agreement, India’s view is that the issue cannot be viewed in compartments. China continues to nuclear power and there are nuclear weapons in the Indian Ocean. India’s objection to not signing the NPT has nothing to do with Pakistan not signing it.
Pakistan quest for nuclear weapons began only after India’s test in 1974. But the Indian stand pre dates 19 74. The super power detente and a shift in china’s attitude will mean stepped up pressure on India, like India, China is not a NPT signatory but unlike India it is a nuclear power China has agreed to attend a NPT review conference due in a few weeks.
Analysts believe China may not be averse to signing the N PT, At least China which has transferred conventional arms to other third world countries has not given technology or materials.
India places the ones of preventing a Pakistani bomb on the U.S. but the U.S. justifies continued arms supplies to Pakistan to prevent a Pak N bomb. Since India has not accepted any of the Pakistani Proposals on NPT the U.S. is unlikely to restrain Pakistan.
Article extracted from this publication >> July 20, 1990
