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Govt must not sign CTBT: Congress

The Congress has said that the government should not sign the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty in haste and suggested that India and Pakistan should explore the possibility of a common approach towards the issue.

India and Pakistan should sit down and try to narrow down differences so that a common approach could be evolved, Congress foreign affairs committee chief K Natwar Singh said.

He said the party did not want the government to sign the CTBT without a national consensus on the issue. The Atal Bihari Vajpayee government has been giving an impression that it is ready to sign the treaty, he said.

The government had not held any formal discussions with the leaders of the Opposition on the subject so far, he said. ''Parliament should be fully informed.''

Recalling that the CTBT could not be amended, he said 152 countries had already signed it, but only 34 of them have ratified it. Those who have not ratified the treaty included the United States, Russia and China.

''When some countries were experimenting with new arms and weapons in Yugoslavia, many felt whether the treaty was worth signing,'' he said. The linkage of nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation should also be properly addressed.''

He wondered as to what the Jaswant Singh-Strobe Talbbot talks were all about, if the CTBT could not be amended. ''The government should disclose the contents of these talks,'' he demanded. The signing of the treaty could wait till the country was convinced that all its national interests had been taken care of.

Moreover, there was no need to sign the treaty till September because of the elections, and the present 'so-called government' has no locus standi to sign it, he said.

UNI

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