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India is a nuclear power, asserts Jaswant

External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh today asserted that whether the United States acknowledges or not, India is a nuclear power.

''Facts cannot be disinvested,'' he said while replying to supplementaries during the question hour in the Lok Sabha.

He assured the House that India would not accept any suggestion from any quarter on minimum nuclear deterrence. ''We will depend on our security requirements, which are changing,'' he added.

He also categorically stated that there was no change in the government's stand on the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. ''We have not agreed to sign the CTBT by September this year,'' he told P J Kurien, who drew Singh's attention to the media reports to this effect. ''There is no iota of truth in the press reports,'' the external affairs minister said.

Replying to the main question of Kurien, the minister said discussions with the United States have narrowed and are now focused on four issues related to security, disarmament and non-proliferation namely the CTBT, the Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty, Indian defence posture and export control.

There has been some advance in the talks on export control as India's record is better than many other countries, including some of the G-15, he said.

UNI

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