Out for a deal?

Talks between India and the United States have strengthened the possibility of the BJP-led Government moving closer to signing the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.

JOHN CHERIAN
in New Delhi

SINCE early June, the Bharatiya Janata Party-led Government has been sending out signals to Washington that it is willing to discuss with "key interlocutors" contentious nuclear issues, including the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT). There have also been indications for some time that the Government is ready to consider seriously the P-5's demands with regard to compliance with the CTBT and the Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty (FMCT), in a desperate effort to stave off diplomatic isolation and punitive sanctions. High level talks, the details of which have not been revealed, have been on since June, when Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee despatched Jaswant Singh to Washington. The second round of these talks was held in Frankfurt in the second week of July, when Jaswant Singh again met with U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott.

The Indian Government's position on the CTBT and related issues became clear when Brajesh Mishra, Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister, briefed journalists a few days before Jaswant Singh left for Frankfurt. Mishra said that India was ready to sign the CTBT once Indian negotiators had determined "what we can get". Mishra also said, for the first time, that India would not insist on the CTBT being amended to include some of its concerns, such as committing all nuclear weapon states to a schedule for reducing and eventually eliminating their nuclear arsenals. As a quid pro quo for India signing the CTBT, Mishra wanted the countries of the P-5 and the G-8 to remove the curbs on the transfer of sophisticated dual-use technology. India is denied access to dual-use technology on the ground that it could be used for the country's nuclear weapons programme.

The other conditions spelt out by Mishra related to full-scope safeguards, which the West is bent on imposing. India, he said, would not open all its nuclear facilities for inspection by any outside agency. India had earlier said that it would not agree to any curbs on missile deployment and the weaponisation of its nuclear capability. It has also given up its insistence on being recognised as a de jure nuclear power after the Clinton administration had reiterated that under no circumstances would India and Pakistan be allowed to gatecrash into the elite nuclear club of five. Instead, India now wants to be given the status of a de facto nuclear power. Such a recognition, External Affairs Ministry officials feel, will give the country access to dual-use technology. India has also indicated that it is willing to convert its voluntary moratorium on nuclear tests into a de jure moratorium.

SHANKER CHAKRAVARTY
U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott.

In response to the new Indian position as formulated by Mishra, the United States administration said that it rejected any linkage between the signing of the CTBT and the relaxation of controls on dual-use technology. New Delhi's compliance, it said, should be "without any preconditions". Indications are that the Frankfurt talks floundered on the same issues, although both sides have said that talks would continue. A statement issued at the end of the talks said that both parties agreed that this "very useful and constructive consultation will continue."

It may not be a coincidence that Vajpayee took a tougher stance on the CTBT at the July 10 parliamentary debate on Indian foreign policy on the day the Talbott-Jaswant Singh talks ended. He told the Rajya Sabha that although India was ready for talks on the CTBT, it would not sign the treaty unconditionally under Western pressure. The Prime Minister may have got the message that the U.S. had not budged from its tough stance on the CTBT.

THE Government, under attack for its foreign policy, particularly its post-Pokhran diplomacy, is on the defensive. The Congress(I), the main Opposition, has warned the Government against departing from the accepted national consensus on not signing the CTBT (see interview with K. Natwar Singh). The party said that it had put the Government on notice. "The people of India will not take kindly to any attempt to obfuscate the real issue and depart from the nationally accepted position on the CTBT," it said it a statement. The Congress(I) has accused the BJP Government of having indicated to some countries that it is moving closer to a position of signing the CTBT.

Prakash Karat, Polit Bureau member of the Communist Party of India(Marxist), told Frontline that those who were arguing for testing and going ahead with weaponisation until the other day were now for a "nuclear deal" with the West. He said that it was now evident that India would never be recognised as a de jure nuclear power. "De facto status does not mean anything," says Karat. Any move to sign the CTBT "will be a surrender."

According to Karat, if India succumbs to Western pressures on the CTBT, then the FMCT will also have to be signed. He would prefer India to revert to its old policy of keeping the nuclear option open. "We should take the tests as a declaration of our deterrence and should not go in for weaponisation," he said. If the weaponisation option was kept open, it would serve India better, he added. Karat is of the opinion that the BJP's stand on the CTBT is unsustainable. "The CTBT cannot be changed and signing the treaty would amount to an abandonment of our basic position on disarmament. We do not accept an unjust nuclear order. There cannot be a bargain on the CTBT."

Karat criticised the other incentives that the Government is doling out to the West in its efforts to wrest concessions on the nuclear issue. During his briefing in the first week of July, Brajesh Mishra indicated that the Government was seriously thinking about opening up the insurance sector to foreign companies.

M. MOORTHY
Jaswant Singh.

Seeking to justify the Government's changed stance on the CTBT, a senior official in the External Affairs Ministry said that the core of the treaty pertained to underground nuclear explosions. India had now declared a moratorium on further underground testing and thus accepted the core of the CTBT, he said. "Our scientists have told us that there is now sufficient data for computer simulated tests." According to him, signing of the CTBT will also be an important symbolic gesture that would go down well in India's immediate strategic neighbourhood.

The official admitted that India's testing had alarmed the West Asian states, the members of the Association of South East Asian Nations and the Central Asian states. A recent summit of Central Asian states came out strongly against the threat of nuclear proliferation in South Asia. "The entire effort of Indian diplomacy today is to show that an occasion to use the nuclear technology we have acquired does not arise. This is one reason why we are happy to engage in a dialogue with any country on the CTBT and the FMCT," he said.

According to him, India is not seeking de jure nuclear weapon state status because such a move could encourage many threshold nuclear states to seek that status. A country like Iran going nuclear could radically change the strategic scenario in West Asia, he said. He is of the opinion that Washington's stance has mellowed considerably since the immediate aftermath of nuclear tests in May. The feeling of shock and the desire to exact revenge in Washington have now been replaced by an awareness that engaging in a dialogue over the contentious issue is a better option. The fact that a dialogue is on between India and the U.S. was important, he said.

Talbott is expected to visit Delhi in the third week of July to continue his talks with Jaswant Singh. There is a remote possibility that the Clinton administration will offer some cosmetic concessions to New Delhi. President Bill Clinton wants to get the CTBT signed and ratified before his presidential term ends. As it is, the Indian and Pakistani tests have seemingly dealt a death blow to the prospects of the CTBT being approved by the U.S. Senate. If Clinton somehow gets India to sign the CTBT, he could get the recalcitrant Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman, Jesse Helms, at least to schedule a hearing for the ratification of the treaty and get the process moving.

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