UPA indecision on Iran sending wrong signals
India’s vote fiasco in IAEA conference on Tehran

The country has lately witnessed gross mismanagement of India’s vote in the meetings of the Board of Governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on Iran’s nuclear programmes. This has yet again demonstrated the UPA Government’s ineptitude in handling this important issue.

In a statement released on February 14, Shri Jaswant Singh said India can clearly neither ignore nor minimize the strategic implications and adverse consequences of Iran acquiring nuclear weapons. It was therefore, patently in India’s interest to have been in the forefront of that vast majority of the international community questioning the many clandestine devices through which nuclear technology and material have been transferred to Iran from Pakistan and several other countries. These acquisitions are in clear violation of the obligations and commitments under the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) plus all related safeguard provisions of it.

It is a nationally humiliating experience thereafter for the country to witness the manner in which the UPA Government and the communists have permitted themselves to be hustled and pressurised into voting in a particular manner. This has rightly but sadly generated an impression that India has surrendered its sovereign rights to take decisions on issues on national importance. The Government of India and its allies—the Communists—are responsible for this shoddy state of affairs. Statements coming out of the US Congress, other decision makers in US and the US ambassador to Delhi threatening India, have heightened suspicion that US wishes to establish a hegemonistic relationship with India, not that of two sovereign equals.

The BJP Parliamentary Party Executive reiterates its firm viewpoint on this occasion that the IAEA votes in September and December, and recent statements emanating from responsible quarters in US raise apprehensions about yet another demonstration of unacceptable unilateralism being initiated in our region. The BJP rejects this theory of unilateral actions outside the UN aegis. It demands of the UPA government to clearly enunciate its stand and cautions the country about the extremely damaging consequences to national interests by this continuing misgovernance of the UPA and its communist partners.

The Government of India has also failed to hold broad-based consultations on the subject with the Opposition. It has belied national trust. The country demands a full explanation from the Government.

We welcome the visit of President Bush to India early next month and expect of the Government of India to avail of this opportunity to put India-US relations back on a balanced, equal and even keel.

Nuclear deal – a threat to national security
Secrecy surrounding India-US Nuclear deal is not a healthy sign

The UPA Government has not kept the country fully informed about what it has actually agreed to in the Agreement of July 18, 2005 with the US.

It is of paramount importance that India takes no such step as would deny it the needed flexibility of maintaining a ‘minimum credible deterrent’, enshrined as a policy postulate in India’s nuclear doctrine. It is evident that India is neither reinventing the Cold War nor is it going in for ever mounting numbers of warheads. Yet, India must always have the capacity to take care of contingent situations and of changing threat scenarios.

Simply stated, this means that India cannot accept any limitation, curb or cap on the production of fissile material. Of course, when the Geneva based Conference on Disarmament finalises a fissile material cut-off treaty, in which India is already a participant and all other nuclear weapon states also agree to adhere to that FMCT, then India could re-examine the position.

Unfortunately all indications from Washington lead to the conclusion that through the nuclear deal being negotiated by the UPA Government India will have to cap its capability of fissile material production.

What is at stake here are: national security issues, autonomy of India’s decision making processes, the autonomy and independence of our nuclear programmes, the inviolability of the principle of a minimum credible deterrent, where decisions about numbers, size and contents are a sovereign, national function not a result of any bilateral agreement; plus, the future of our scientific and technological research in the nuclear field. The BJP Parliamentary Party Executive cautions the UPA Government and its communist allies: Do not play with national interests; do not sell the country’s national security interests to foreigners.

We welcome the visit of President Bush to India early next month and expect of the Government of India to avail of this opportunity to put India-US relations back on a balanced, and an equal and even keel.