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N-powers must demand safeguards before making deals with India, Pakistan: UN

United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Disarmament Jayantha Dhanapala has virtually opposed the idea of nuclear powers engaging in civil nuclear co-operation with India and Pakistan without insisting on full-scope safeguards after the two south Asian nations had conducted nuclear tests.

"The fact that certain NPT (nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty) parties are engaging in civil nuclear co-operation in south Asia without any requirement for full-scope IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) safeguards may -- over time -- unleash commercial pressures to abandon that responsible global standard," he said in his luncheon address at the seventh Carnegie international non-proliferation conference which began in Washington yesterday.

He said, "It is also worth noting that this is not the only region in which nuclear weapons have been acquired or detonated in the name of disarmament and world peace.

"The tests in south Asia do indeed pose threats to the global norms of both non-proliferation and disarmament, primarily through their potential demonstration effect. If countries are perceived to derive certain benefits from ignoring such fundamental global norms, the risk could grow that others will follow suit or seek various forms of compensation for continued participation in the regime."

Dhanapala, who was Sri Lanka's ambassador to the US before taking over the UN assignment, regretted that doctrine of nuclear deterrence continued to captivate strategic thinkers even after the end of the cold war.

"It is a strategic concept that has now evidently found fertile ground in south Asia. Elsewhere, first-use nuclear doctrines are still being espoused by certain countries," he said adding, "the greater reliance that is placed on such postures, the harder it will be to discourage the possession of proliferation of such weapons globally."

He disagreed with those observers who, in the immediate aftermath of the south Asia tests, drew the "hasty and erroneous conclusions" that the NPT regime had been crippled. They had not inspired parties to abandon the NPT and its associated regimes. The tests surely did not interfere with Brazil's decision to join the treaty last year.

"Neither the NPT nor the IAEA's safeguards system can be blamed for the decision by two non-parties (India and Pakistan) to test nuclear weapons,'' he added.

Dhanapala was replying to the concern expressed by some countries over the future of the NPT and stability of its associated regimes after the tests by India and Pakistan.

He noted that the tests had been condemned by diverse multilateral institutions on no less than 25 occasions last year, institutions, which together, represented virtually all inhabited regions on earth.

"Prospects also remain good for obtaining the necessary signatures on the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, I hope this will happen this year and the treaty will enter into force as soon as soon as possible thereafter,'' he added.

He said these tests (five by india and six by pakistan) amounted to ''eleven steps backward in history -- they symbolise a retreat by the rulers of a significant faction of humanity from a collective global effort to devalue and delegitimise nuclear weapons and they come at a time when so many compelling human needs in this region remain unfulfilled."

UNI

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