New Delhi
30 June 2007
New Delhi's decision to allow USS Nimitz to dock at Chennai marks
a reversal of India's past policy opposing the transit of nuclear weapons in her
neighbourhood and the US base at Diego Garcia, and its demand for a zone of peace in
the Indian Ocean, according to the Coalition for Nuclear Disarmament and Peace.
The CNDP is a network of over 200 Indian organisations, including grassroots groups
and mass movements.
It said in a statement, "[The claim] flies in the face of the US's well-reiterated policy to
"neither deny nor confirm" the presence of nuclear weapons on its warships under any
circumstances, and its standing instructions to military personnel. The fact that New
Delhi has gratuitously granted this certificate to the US, when Washington itself does not
do so, speaks poorly of our foreign and security policies."
New Delhi has said that the nuclear-powered ship is not known to be carrying nuclear
weapons on board, and hence its call does not violate India's well-established, often-
reiterated policy of disallowing foreign nuclear weapons into its territorial waters.
The signatories to the statement include Prof Achin Vanaik, Christopher Fonseca, Admiral
(Retd) Ramdas, Praful Bidwai, Prof Kamal Mitra Chenoy, Prabir Purkayastha and J Sri
Raman.
They said that a visit to India of the USS Nimitz, one of two US aircraft carriers recently
mobilised in the Persian Gulf to threaten Iran, will send out a negative international
signal in the context of the destabilisation of West Asia caused by the US-led invasion of
Iraq. "Such "military interactions" point to an erosion of foreign policy independence and
a departure from the United Progressive Alliance's promise to work for a balanced,
multipolar world free of nuclear weapons," they said.
Their statement went on to suggest that the contention that the visit of USS Nimitz should
be condoned because 10 other nuclear-powered ships and/or submarines have visited
Indian ports in recent years lacks logic. "Such precedents cannot justify a policy
violation. It is known that the nuclear weapons-states usually base some or all their
nuclear warheads on nuclear-powered vessels," it read.
No comments:
Post a Comment