Dr Ashley J Tellis, senior associate of the United States thinktank Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, admitted that the nuclear agreement signed between the US and India on July 18, 2005 would collapse if India chose to test a nuclear device at any point of time and the US would be bound by its laws to impose sanctions against India.
He was delivering a keynote address on the first anniversary of the signing of the treaty organised by the Confederation of Indian Industries in New Delhi on Tuesday.
"(Indian foreign secretary) Shyam Saran is right when he says that if in future any government chose to test a nuclear device then a new world would emerge and would have to be dealt with by the new dispensation. "The US would be forced to impose sanctions against India. Even the US President is not empowered to change the rules that allow only five nuclear states to test. Of course the treaty would collapse," he said when leading defence expert Bharat Karnad asked Tellis why he had chosen not to highlight this aspect of the treaty. Tellis is a non-proliferation expert.
Tellis defended