Nuclear deal: Experts allege NPT violation by Bush

Washington, June 21 : A week ahead of the mark-up hearing on the Indo-US civilian nuclear deal, a group of ten nonproliferation experts have written to Congressmen and Senators drawing their attention to what they called the Bush administration's brazen attempt to flout the laws of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty in order to pass on sensitive civilian nuclear technology to India.

According to these experts, which include Darryl Kimball of the Arms Control Association, George Perkovich of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and Executive Director of the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center Henry Sokolski, the Indo-US nuclear deal clearly violates Article I of the NPT which prohibits members ''in any way to assist, encourage, or induce any non-nuclear weapon State to manufacture or otherwise acquire nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices.'' The experts' letter to members of the US Congress was released to reporters at a press conference by the Arms Control Association here yesterday.

The letter said foreign nuclear fuel supplies would free up India's limited domestic nuclear fuel-making capacity to produce highly enriched uranium and plutonium for weapons. By the Indian Government's own admission, its military and civil nuclear programmes are ''inextricably linked, so if we assist one, we assist the other.'' Since the proposed civilian nuclear deal also accepts the legitimacy of India's nuclear weapons programme, it would effectively encourage India to continue in that direction, the experts said.

They pointed out that the State Department sent its reply on June 5 to their question: Does the proposed Indo-US nuclear deal violate the NPT? But as expected, the experts said, the State Department's reply denied that it had violated any rules and pointed out that the nuclear cooperation with India would not constitute any NPT violation.

''But to reach this conclusion the State Department construed the meaning of the NPT so narrowly as to render it meaningless,'' the experts said, adding that ''the State Department also ignores the reality that partial safeguards in a state with a secret nuclear weapons programme are more symbol than substance.'' ''India may not have to comply with the NPT, but the United States as a signatory to the NPT has a solemn responsibility not only to discourage proliferation by others, but to refrain from assisting other states' nuclear weapons programme in any way. The current proposal would breach this central provision of the treaty,'' they contended.

The experts also criticized the Bush administration for trying to downplay these points by emphasizing the strategic advantages of partnership with India. Administration officials had said that failure to accede to India on the nuclear issue would threaten the whole arrangement.

They said that the main point is ''our strategic interest dictates that we should not discard our nonproliferation policy and our Treaty obligations. To do so would only enfeeble our case against NPT violators.'' Other experts who signed the letter were Director of the Natural Resource Defence Council on Nuclear Programme Thomas Cochran, Advisor to Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory Leonard Weiss, energy consultant and former US Nuclear Regulatory Commissioner Victor Gilinsky, former Director of the US Arms Control and Disarmament Agency and Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Affairs John Holum, senior analyst Christopher Paine of and Natural Resource Defence Council, Hoover Institution Senior Fellow and member of President Bush's Iraqi WMD Commission Henry S Rowen and Lawrence Scheinman of Center for Nonproliferation Studies.

UNI

Related Stories
Indo-US civilian nuclear deal likely to be modified
'Indo-US N-deal unlikely to be resolved this year'