WORLD | Thursday, November 5, 2009 | Email | Print | 
US, EU ask India, others to embrace NPT, CTBT
S Rajagopalan | Washington
In a renewed bid to pressure India and other non-signatories, a summit of the United States and the European Union has asked all these nations to accede to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) “as non-nuclear weapon States” to achieve universality.
It has also affirmed full support for the entry into force of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) at an early date and for continued observance of moratoria on testing in the meantime.
“We are committed to preserve and strengthen the authority and integrity of the NPT,” the summit said in a joint declaration after its meeting in Washington on Tuesday, adding that the US-EU formation will “work actively for the successful outcome of the 2010 (NPT) Review Conference”.
While India has rejected the NPT right from its inception on the ground that it is “discriminatory”, Pakistan and Israel have also refused to sign it. The one other country that is not party to it is North Korea, which pulled out of the NPT a few years ago after having embraced it earlier.
The US-EU summit took the stand that the NPT, based on the three mutually-reinforcing pillars of Non-Proliferation, disarmament and peaceful uses of nuclear energy, represents “a unique and irreplaceable framework for maintaining and strengthening international peace, security and stability”.
Apart from the NPT and CTBT, the summit called for the immediate start of negotiations of a Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty (FMCT), including verification provisions, when the Conference on Disarmament (CD) reconvenes in January 2010, on the basis of the consensus agreement on a programme of work in the CD in May 2009.
In the meantime, it called upon on all States concerned to declare and uphold an immediate moratorium on the production of fissile materials for nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices.
The summit expressed its full support for the International Atomic Energy Agency’s work on nuclear safeguards, safety and security. “We endorse the Additional Protocol and comprehensive safeguards as the standard for NPT verification. We will work to ensure that the IAEA has the resources and authority to carry out its essential mandate.”
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