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Pak agrees to sign CTBT

Pakistan says it will sign the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty banning nuclear testing within the next year.

Pakistan's decision leaves India and North Korea as the only nuclear-capable nations out of the CTBT's ambit.

Speaking at the United Nations General Assembly on Wednesday, Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharief, however, linked the decision to a lifting of US economic sanctions imposed on his country after its nuclear tests in May.

The New York Times reported that American officials said President Bill Clinton told Sharief at their meeting on Monday that sanctions could not be waived until Pakistan made a formal decision not to test nuclear weapons.

Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee will address the Assembly on Thursday, and there is considerable speculation whether he will announce that India too would sign the CTBT.

Both the Indian and Pakistan leaders face a considerable political backlash at home on the CTBT issue. One Islamic fundamentalist leader in Pakistan has delivered a fatwa against Nawaz Sharief if his government goes ahead and signs the treaty.

India announced a unilateral moratorium on further nuclear tests after its second round of atomic experiments on May 13.

US Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott has been trying to persuade both India and Pakistan officials for the last four months to sign the CTBT. On Monday, he met again with Vajpayee's emissary, Jaswant Singh, to persuade India to sign the test-ban treaty within a certain time frame. US officials have acknowledged that they have had more success with Pakistan than India on the CTBT issue.

'The within-a-year part is something that Strobe has been working overtime to try and nail down' Michael Krepon, president of the Henry L. Stimson Center, a military research organisation in Washington, told The New York Times. What Pakistan announced, he said, amounted to 'a time-bound framework, a declaration of intent.'

The New York Times said Sharief had chosen his one-year time frame for signing the CTBT 'deliberately.' In September 1999, the nations that have adhered to the treaty -- 150 to date -- will meet to review it. The test ban will come into force then, but only if all 44 nations with nuclear reactors have signed and ratified.

The US has signed the treaty, but Clinton has not yet sent it to the senate for ratification.

Pakistan, The New York Times said, wants to be part of the 1999 conference to prevent the rules from changing if India holds out against the treaty. Some countries have suggested that in order to avoid the treaty from being eclipsed, it may be necessary to overlook India and North Korea and allow the CTBT to go into effect with ratifications from only 42 nuclear-capable nations.

"Pakistan will oppose any attempt to change this fundamental requirement," Sharief told the UN General Assembly, adding, "Such a change can only be made by consensus."

He warned that Pakistan will comply with a ban on nuclear tests only as long as India does. "If India were to resume nuclear testing, Pakistan will review its position," Sharief warned.

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