Rejecting efforts to impose the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) on it through the UN Security Council resolution, India has made it clear that it will not sign the pact as a non-weapon state as an atomic arsenal is integral to its security.
India has made it known to the Security Council that it cannot accept the “externally prescribed norms or standards” on issues that are contrary to its national interests or infringe on its sovereignty.
In a letter to UNSC President Susan E Rice of the US, Indian Permanent Representative to the UN, Hardeep Singh Puri, questioned the role of the world body in enforcing treaties like NPT even while he reiterated India’s commitment to no-testing, no-first-use of nuclear weapons and non-discriminatory universal non-proliferation.
“India cannot accept calls for universalisation of NPT,” he said as the UNSC passed a resolution asking all non-NPT nations to sign the treaty which India considers flawed and discriminatory.
Citing Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s statement in Parliament on July 29, Puri said “there is no question of India joining the NPT as a non-nuclear weapon state. Nuclear weapons are an integral part of India’s national security and will remain so, pending non-discriminatory and global nuclear disarmament.”
Puri said India “cannot accept externally prescribed norms or standards on matters within the jurisdiction of its Parliament or which are not consistent with India’s constitutional provisions and procedures or are contrary to India’s national interests or infringe on its sovereignty”.
The envoy said India cannot comply with non-proliferation obligations to which it has not given its consent. "We cannot accept any obligations arising from treaties that India has not signed or ratified. This position is consistent with the fundamental principles of international law and the Law of Treaties," Puri said in the letter dated yesterday which was released here today. "The role of the Security Council would arise if those treaties themselves provide for such a role," he said. India, which has been maintaining that NPT is discriminatory and flawed, pointed out that it had in 1992 prescribed norms and standards for national or international conduct which the Security Council itself "must scrupulously accept". "We remain committed to a voluntary, unilateral moratorium on nuclear testing. We do not subscribe to any arms race, including a nuclear arms race. We have always tempered the exercise of our strategic autonomy with a sense of global responsibility," Puri said.
