Disarmament

Sir, - Your Editorial ``Setback for disarmament'' (May 23) brings out how the past half century has just witnessed much talking and less achievements in nuclear non-proliferation. The commitments and the announcements by the developed nations have been increasing by the year.

But when it comes to actual adherence to agreements, the richer countries have always defended the expansion of their nuclear facilities. At the same time a lot of economic and political pressure has been exerted on developing nations to put an end to nuclear tests. This is a vicious circle and continues on and on with countries worldwide never seeing eye to eye on non- proliferation issues.

The immediate need, as you have said, is a schedule to achieve complete disarmament in stages. The initiative must come from countries like the U.S., China, Japan, France, etc. The U.S. efforts to alter the 1972 anti-ballistic missile treaty for a new missile defence puts its concerns for human security under a cloud. A militarily powerful country like the U.S. has been stressing the need for an additional missile defence.

It should be remembered that a peace-loving country like India had to perform the Pokhran blast for more genuine security reasons and still continues to draw flak on the issue.

Nuclear weapons can never be a source of security. Disarmament is not just the duty of developing nations. India has been advised a lot in the post-Pokhran period to sign the CTBT even though the continuous threat to India's security is known worldwide.

This shows that a lot of preaching has been done with no one to follow it. The possession of nuclear weapons must not be seen as a route to superpower status.

Kala Narasimha,

Melbourne (Australia)

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