Bjp Govt Under Pressure Over Ctbt

Prime Minister AB Vajpayee's statement in Parliament on Tuesday that India was moving towards signing the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty appears to have had two purposes: One, the government has begun to counter the general sentiment in the country against the treaty. Two, it is trying to stave off pressure from the US and other powers in the wake of the escalating conflict in Jammu and Kashmir and what one diplomat calls the "fiasco" in Colombo.

Notwithstanding the ministry of external affairs' claims that its efforts at the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation's conference in Colombo last week were a grand success, there is a growing realisation among at least some diplomats that Pakistan has taken the propaganda advantage. The world perceives a breakdown of dialogue on the one hand and escalation of tension between the two nascent nuclear powers on the other. That is exactly what Pakistan, which has been pressing for mediation, wants.

 

The US has chosen this moment to gratituously state its willingness to mediate if India wants it to. Some diplomats question the wisdom of not yielding in Colombo to Pakistan's insistence that Kashmir be discussed separately from the other seven issues identified last year for dialogue.

"The issue is already in international focus. Everyone says that Kashmir is the main issue. What is the point now of refusing to talk separately about Kashmir," asks one diplomat. Pakistan, by calibrating its guerrilla war and shelling on the line of control, has successfully played on fears across the world that a nuclear holocaust could be triggered in south Asia.

It is therefore the US' future strategic relationships in the subcontinent that worry some diplomats as they prepare to sign the CTBT. They wonder if India can use this opportunity to neutralise the potential threat to India from the US-Pakistan-China axis.

The government is otherwise pleased with the progress of the Indo-US dialogue, led by Jaswant Singh and Strobe Talbott. The US is apparently willing to let India keep a minimal deterrant force and to roll back the recent sanctions if India signs the CTBT. It also appears willing to roll back the sanctions imposed on India's imports of dual use technologies, but after some time.

The next round of the Singh-Talbott talks are likely in the third week of August and - unless Pakistan's manages to overshadow the nuclear-related talks with the Kashmir issue - some optimistic diplomats predict that India could sign the CTBT by late September, when Vajpayee is to address the United Nations General Assembly.

Others say the domestic opposition could not be won over by then. The Congress has stated publicly its commitment against the CTBT. Other voices too have been raised against the treaty. Arundhati Ghosh, who negotiated for India at the treaty conference, points to the unacceptability of the intrusive provisions for on site inspections with the use of national technical means (primarily, the US).