Government Sees No Option But To Sign Ctbt

The BJP appears to have gradually come to the conclusion that India should sign the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty only after getting admitted into the nuclear club. Till that time the party apparently holds that the country should not slow down production of missiles in order to keep its nuclear opions open.

Some senior party leaders argue that India can strongly campaign for a nuclear free world after becoming a dejure nuclear power. The party's official stand has been that India should not sign the treaty as it has been discriminatory.

This is despite Prime Minsiter AB Vajpayee's recent statement that the country was moving towards signing the treaty. These leaders hold that Vajpayee's statement did not indicate a change in the country's stand on the CTBT.

 

The Vajpayee government is unlikely to sign the Comprehensive test ban treaty without significant modifications in it, they held. The government had stated this when United States' deputy secretary Strobe Talbott visited India recently.