India will not sign 'discriminatory' NPT: Tharoor

Jaipur, Sep 26 (ANI): Minister of State for External Affairs Shashi Tharoor has said that India will not adhere to any treaty such as the Nuclear Proliferation Treaty (NPT), and will not sign it as long as it is discriminatory.

Tharoor was reacting to a call by US President Barack Obama, who while chairing a historic meeting of the UN Security Council on Thursday appealed the nuclear weapon states to scrap their deadly arsenal.

Obama also called upon all countries to abstain from conducting a nuclear test explosion and join the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.

"We feel that no country should have nuclear weapons, but as long as some countries have nuclear weapons we will not accept a notion, so called non-proliferation which says that some countries are entitled to have them and others are not, that is discriminatory and that is not acceptable to India," said Tharoor.

Tharoor was in Jaipur in connection with release of his book "Shadows across the playing field - 60 Years of India-Pakistan Cricket", which he authored with Shaharyar Khan of Pakistan.

Apart from India, the other two countries, which have refused to sign the NPT, are Israel and Pakistan.

Reacting to Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari's address in the UN General Assembly seeking an early resumption of peace talks with India, Tharoor said Pakistan has to take the initiative by acting against the perpetrators of the Mumbai terror attacks.

"As far as the normal relations are concerned between both the countries (India and Pakistan) our government is not the one that is hesitating. We have said it very clearly that if Pakistan takes one step forward, to quote our Prime Minister, we will go more than half way but the problem is that one step has not been taken and we are waiting for that to happen," Tharoor said.

Following the Mumbai terror attacks in November last year, India put on hold the five-year-old peace process, saying Pakistan must act decisively against the militants India holds responsible for the assault. (ANI)