Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD)

P-5 agree on dropping sanctions

The Hindu, June 5, 1998

The five permanent U.N. Security Council members today tentatively agreed to avoid threatening sanctions against India and Pakistan over nuclear testing, diplomats said.

The decision came during negotiations on a draft resolution following yesterday's meeting in Geneva of Foreign Ministers of Britain, China, France, Russia and the U.S. An earlier draft had threatened "further action" against India and Pakistan if they failed to implement the resolution. The five, who are also official nuclear powers, agreed today that the text should state the Council's willingness to consider "how best to ensure the implementation of the present resolution," a western diplomat said.

The draft resolution urges India and Pakistan to avoid weaponising after conducting their nuclear tests series and to sign the NPT and the CTBT.

India flays security council

India today criticised the Security Council for considering a draft resolution on its nuclear tests and questioned its rationale in calling upon a country not to develop nuclear devices while "sparing" the nations possessing thousands of such weapons.

"Can the (U.N.) Council call on a country not to develop ballistic missiles when it has made no such call to others, including those who have several thousand of these weapons in their arsenals and continue to produce and develop them," the Indian Ambassador to the U.N. Mr. Kamlesh Sharma asked in a strong-worded letter to Council president, Mr. Antonio Monteiro.

Mr. Sharma said that if the nuclear tests are a threat to non-proliferation and disarmament, "why did the Council not take cognisance of over 2,000 tests carried out over the last 50 years, including as recently as 1996?"

The U.N. has not even considered the negotiations of a treaty to ban the development and production of ballistic missiles, he said and flayed the 15-member Council for "disregarding" the U.N. Charter provision by not allowing India to participate in the discussion on the draft.