The Hindu : India, U.S. may resume n-talks

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Mar 18, 2002

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India, U.S. may resume n-talks
By C. Raja Mohan

NEW DELHI, MARCH 17. India and the U.S. will consider the resumption of their nuclear dialogue when officials from both sides review the full spectrum of bilateral relations here tomorrow.

It is said to be on top of the agenda of the visiting U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for South Asian Affairs, Christina Rocca.

Renewed nuclear talks, however, would take place in a very different international environment. Thanks to the radical approach to arms control adopted by the Bush Administration, many of the old issues such as the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) have lost the salience in the bilateral

dialogue they enjoyed during the Clinton Administration.

India's support to the positive aspects of the U.S. President, George W. Bush's controversial plans for missile defence reflected the sea change in the context of bilateral nuclear dialogue.

The U.S. decision last September to lift nuclear sanctions against India without a reference to New Delhi's signature on the CTBT reinforced the transformation.

India and the U.S. have had more than ten rounds of nuclear and security consultations between the External Affairs Minister, Jaswant Singh, and the U.S. Deputy Secretary of State, Strobe Talbott, after New Delhi conducted nuclear tests in May 1998. The talks had generated considerable mutual understanding, but ended inconclusively.

Beyond the rejection of the CTBT, Mr. Bush has made decisive commitments to push forward American plans for missile defences, announced unilateral withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty that constrains missile defence, threw out a multilaterally negotiated protocol to a treaty on biological weapons and hinted at a reorientation of its nuclear posture towards a likely first use of nuclear weapons against ``states of concern''.

At a time when Mr. Bush has driven a truck through the dilapidated structures of arms control, India and the U.S. would not want to return to the old framework of nuclear dialogue put in place by the Clinton Administration.

Only a few diehards in the State Department bureaucracy want to focus on the dead weight of the earlier Indo- U.S. nuclear dialogue.

Before talks at the official level on arms control issues begin, it may be important to generate an understanding at the political level between the two countries on the premises and direction of a new nuclear dialogue.

With the Bush Administration having wrought an overhaul of traditional thinking on arms control and New Delhi viewing nuclear issues through a different prism, the challenge before India and the U.S. is to build on the unexpected convergence of views in the traditionally divisive area of nuclear arms control.

Instead of returning to the old issues such as the CTBT and fissile material cut-off, an Indo-U.S. nuclear dialogue could productively focus on ways to cope with nuclear terrorism, expand bilateral cooperation on missile defence and reform the global nuclear order to make it more effective.

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