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Nuclear treaty must consider India's security: BJP

NEW DELHI: India will sign the nuclear test ban treaty only if it adresses the country's security concerns, the president of the ruling Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) was quoted as saying on Sunday.

U.S. President Bill Clinton said during a visit last week that he hoped India, which in 1998 staged tit-for-tat nuclear tests alongside rival Pakistan, would ultimately sign and ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.

"We have our own security concerns. If only the CTBT is changed taking our security concerns into consideration, we can think of signing it," Kushabhau Thakre told a news conference in the city of Madras, according to the Press Trust of India.

Thakre's BJP heads the multi-party National Democratic Alliance which is in power in New Delhi.

He was quoted as saying the present form of the CTBT was "unilateral" and there was no question of India signing it.

No other details were available but India has in the past baulked at joining the CTBT on the grounds that it would allow recognised nuclear powers to fine-tune their arsenals while holding others in check, and that it would not bind them to disarm within a specified time-frame.

All five declared nuclear powers - the United States, Russia, Britain, France and China - have signed the treaty, but only Britain and France have ratified it.

The CTBT cannot go into force without ratification by all 44 nuclear-capable states. Clinton said during his visit that he still wanted the U.S. Senate, which rejected the treaty last year, to ratify it eventually.

During Clinton's visit, Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee reiterated a commitment not to conduct further nuclear tests, engage in a nuclear arms race or be the first to use nuclear weapons against any country.-Reuters