July 27, 1998

As the US dangles carrots, India and Pakistan think signing the treaty is not a sin.

By Raj Chengappa

When US President Bill Clinton became the first of the 146 leaders to sign the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) in 1996 he called it "the longest-sought, hardest-fought prize in the history of arms control". Barely two years later he and the world are staring at the prospect of the treaty coming unstuck by the series of nuclear tests conducted by India and Pakistan in May. US Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott's priority number one on his visit to India and Pakistan between July 20 and 24 is to somehow get the two countries on board the CTBT. Both countries along with North Korea have so far refused to sign the treaty which seeks a total ban on nuclear tests by any nation. That the US is making some headway was apparent from the conciliatory noises India and Pakistan have been making on the CTBT. Faced with an impending economic collapse unless the US bails it out, Pakistan, which had earlier taken a hardline approach, began to soften. Foreign Minister Gohar Ayub Khan, who had once said that Pakistan would sign the CTBT only on the "same day, same hour and on the same paper" as India, changed tack and said that the issue of signing it was no longer linked to its neighbour.

India, having already announced a voluntary moratorium on tests, appeared to drop all its previous moral posturing over the treaty. Its stated reason for not signing was that the treaty was not comprehensive, meaning it still allowed the five nuclear weapons states -- the US, Russia, France, China and the UK -- the option to carry out sub-critical tests or those without an explosive yield. Also it was not, as Prime Minister A.B. Vajpayee told Parliament, "related to disarmament". India had wanted the P-5 to agree to a time-bound programme for total disarmament which it refused. Meanwhile, in order to put more pressure on India and other recalcitrant countries like Pakistan and North Korea, an "entry into force" clause was rammed through that put them among a list of 44 countries which had to sign if the treaty were to come into force. India saw this as a patently unfair clause.

The main reason for India's abstinence, however, was more pragmatic. India could not sign the treaty till it had conducted a series of tests to validate its nuclear weapons capability. The 1974 test was clearly not enough. Also after the recent round of tests India claims it has acquired the capability for subcritical experiments obviating any future need for explosions. Having attained its primary objective of possessing "a viable nuclear weapons option" the Vajpayee Government doesn't view signing the treaty as a sin anymore. Experts also realise that there is no way India can get nations to renegotiate the treaty. Yet so much of hype and hate against the CTBT was built up by policy-makers in 1996 that the Government now finds it difficult to turn domestic political opinion around to endorse the treaty. So what India's interlocutors are pressing the US and other key countries for is "an honourable way" out for the country to join the band.

With the US, India's conditions for getting on board the CTBT is the lifting of recent economic sanctions and easing curbs on transfer of critical technology. It also says that its "minimum nuclear deterrence" policy is non-negotiable and it will develop its missile capability. Last week the US Congress gave Clinton some leeway on sanctions by allowing him to suspend it for a year. And the US State Department has indicated that it was no longer opposed to the two countries building and testing missiles as long as they "refrained from deploying them". The US did behave churlishly by denying Atomic Energy Commission Chairman R. Chidambaram a visa to attend an international conference of crystallographers but explained it away as an aberration.

If there is a sense of urgency to get moving on the CTBT it comes from several fronts. With Pakistan's economy collapsing, the US has to move fast to bail out its ally or face the prospect of an unstable Islamic country that may be tempted to hawk its nuclear technology in desperation to Middle-east countries. With Clinton planning to visit the subcontinent later this year, unless there is some breakthrough on the non-proliferation agenda he would be forced to cancel his trip. That would set back chances of a quick settlement. Another factor is that Clinton has made non-proliferation his major foreign policy objective and he wouldn't want to see his efforts being undone before his second term as President ends. India too needs to find a way of signing the CTBT before it comes up for review in September 1999. Otherwise it could face severe international criticism. By last week, the question was no longer whether there would be a breakthrough on the CTBT front. It was only when.

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