India is ready to be part of a new international consensus to replace the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty that the United States has apparently been pushing for, Foreign Secretary Shiv Shankar Menon said.
In an interaction with Indian correspondents at the embassy in Washington after wrapping up three days of meetings with senior Bush Administration officials and co-chairing the US-India High Technology Cooperation Group, Menon said, "We are ready to be part of a new international consensus on nonproliferation, and we think there is a need for one."
He said ideally, India would like to see a consensus that builds on essentially the ideas that the then prime minister Rajiv Gandhi put forward of a nuclear weapon free world --moving towards it in pre-determined, verifiable time frame.
"But the precise shape of this new consensus, I'll be reluctant to start spelling out now because that's something that we will have to negotiate among ourselves," he said.
Menon noted: "I get the feeling that other states too are looking at new solutions because I think there are varying levels of happiness or unhappiness with the existing nonproliferation system or regime, if you call it that."
But he reiterated that India is ready to do this and 'we've been talking to our friends and our partners and to see whether this is possible'.