Nuclear Powers Vow to Surmount India’s Veto of Test Ban

The United States and the world’s other four nuclear powers refused to take India’s “no” for an answer Tuesday and vowed to find a way to salvage the generation-old dream of a worldwide ban on nuclear tests, despite New Delhi’s veto at the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva.

Officials in Washington said that backers of the ban probably will introduce it as a regular resolution when the U.N. General Assembly convenes next month, a procedure that could let nations begin to sign it before the end of this year.

An overwhelming vote in the General Assembly--which is virtually certain--would put pressure on India to drop its opposition to the measure that would ban all nuclear explosions, whether bomb tests or ostensibly peaceful blasts.

But unless New Delhi relents, the accord can never officially take effect because it must be ratified by all 44 nations that have nuclear research reactors. India is the only one of the 44 to object to the ban.

In an angry statement issued in Geneva, U.S. disarmament negotiator Stephen Ledogar brushed aside India’s explanation that it blocked the treaty to pressure the five nuclear powers--the United States, Russia, Britain, France and China--to set a deadline to get rid of their arsenals.

“The real reason is that the current government in New Delhi wants to maintain the Indian nuclear weapon option,” Ledogar said.

India weeks ago announced its opposition to the treaty, the product of two years of negotiations by the 61-nation Conference on Disarmament. But the United States and other backers of the pact sought to buy time by urging India to allow the conference to send the measure to the United Nations even though New Delhi remained unwilling to sign it.

In a speech to the conference Tuesday, Indian negotiator Arundhati Ghose rejected that approach. “Our opposition to that text continues,” she said. “We would not, therefore, agree to it being forwarded to the [United Nations] in any form by this conference.”

Ledogar said: “India has formally vetoed the treaty text and made it clear that it would take whatever step was necessary to prevent the text being acted upon by the Conference on Disarmament. The problem now is how the rest of us can do what we have to do.”

Although the option of taking the treaty directly to the U.N. has always been available, the United States was reluctant to take that route unless absolutely necessary. John Holum, director of the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, said earlier this month that failure to ratify a measure as popular as a nuclear test ban treaty would destroy the credibility of the Conference on Disarmament.

If the treaty is approved by the U.N., any country in the world can sign it. But it would impose new restrictions on just eight states--the five acknowledged nuclear powers plus India, Pakistan and Israel, the three countries known to be capable of producing nuclear weapons that have not signed the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. The earlier treaty bans nuclear tests by all countries that have signed it except the acknowledged nuclear states.

Iran, which is not yet a nuclear power, has joined India in opposing the treaty. All other countries represented at the disarmament conference have agreed to support the pact.