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Mulayam Singh opposes CTBT

Amberish K Diwanji in New Delhi

Even as the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government began to try to create a consensus on signing the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, probably timed for United States President Bill Clinton's visit to India in March 2000, former Union defence minister Mulayam Singh Yadav declared that his Samajwadi Party would oppose any attempt to forge such a consensus.

The government has declared its intention of seeking a "broad consensus" on signing the treaty whose ratification was rejected by the US Senate.

Senior officials from the external affairs ministry are visiting the US to meet their counterparts. The two senior officials are Rakesh Sood, joint secretary in charge of disarmament, and Anil Prasad, joint secretary in charge of the Americas.

A senior external affairs ministry official emphasised that the meeting was a routine bilateral meeting and a broad range of topics would be discussed.

It is also a precursor to the next meeting between External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh and US Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott, scheduled to be held in January 2000. The meeting is likely to be held in London.

Clearly, in this eighth meeting between Singh and Talbott, the CTBT will be high on the agenda. Observers say the government would like to give Talbott an assurance that a consensus has been achieved and India will sign the CTBT at a convenient time.

But Mulayam Singh declared that his party would resolutely oppose any attempt to forge a consensus on the matter. His opposition alone will not, however, prevent the treaty from being ratified in Parliament, because the Samajwadi Party just does not have the numbers needed to pose a real threat to the government's plan.

One difficulty facing the government is the necessity of signing the CTBT at a time when it stands discredited after the US Senate rejected its ratification. But the external affairs ministry reiterated that whether to sign the CTBT would be decided as per the country's "supreme interests" rather than its acceptance or rejection by another country.

The senior ministry official pointed out that even after the Senate's rejection, both China and Russia have spoken about ratifying the CTBT. (Both countries have already signed it.) A Chinese spokesman had declared on October 14 - the day the Senate rejected the treaty - that Beijing would continue to work to bring the treaty into force while a bill for the ratification of the CTBT was introduced on November 23.

Incidentally, as per the CTBT's conditions, if any country with a nuclear reactor does not sign and ratify it, such as the US, India, Pakistan, China or Russia, the treaty will not enter into force.

The Indian government's position is that having already declared a unilateral moratorium on any further testing of nuclear weapons, by signing the CTBT India will only be converting a de facto position into a de jure one. Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpyee had declared the moratorium immediately after India's nuclear tests in May 1998 at Pokhran.

But it is on the political front that the government has to work hard. The leading opposition party, the Congress, has so far sent ambivalent signals on supporting the treaty. K Natwar Singh, who is in charge of the foreign affairs department in the Congress, has already stated that the party is willing to consent to the CTBT if "some conditions are met". When governing the country, the Congress had strongly opposed the CTBT on grounds of discrimination against non-nuclear states.

One of the Congress party's demands is that the entire gamut of talks between Jaswant Singh and Talbott must be revealed. The Congress has accused the ruling National Democratic Alliance of reaching secret agreements and warned that it will not co-operate if the government refuses to make the country's position public.

But in the current session of Parliament, the Congress did co-operate with the ruling alliance in ensuring that certain contentious bills such as the insurance bill were passed. It remains to be seen if the same level of co-operation continues vis-a-vis the CTBT.

The left parties are strongly opposed to the CTBT, seeing it as an unequal treaty that is being forced upon India. Even after the nuclear tests in May 1998, the Left insists that it will not support the treaty. Similarly, many left-of-centre parties remain opposed to the bill, but at least some of them are likely to come around to the government's point of view.

Even if they don't, Congress support to the bill will ensure its passage through the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha. But lack of support from the Congress will stall the bill in the Rajya Sabha.

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