Thaindian News

By Arun Kumar
Washington, April 10 (IANS) Suggesting that India and Pakistan have upset the balance of nuclear deterrence, the US has said it will seek the two countries’ help in its efforts to limit global nuclear arsenals.

While the US and Russia have kept “their part of the bargain” in limiting their arsenals, “…other countries that have pursued nuclear weapons, like India and Pakistan, for example, have done so in a way that has upset the balance of nuclear deterrent”, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Friday.

“That’s why we’re working with both countries very hard to try to make sure that their nuclear stock piles are well tended to, and that they participate with us in trying to limit the number of nuclear weapons,” she said ahead of next week’s Nuclear Security Summit.

“And both of them will be in Washington this next week,” Clinton said in a speech on nuclear non-proliferation at the University of Louisville, Kentucky, outlining the US approach to the summit.

“But I’m a realist. And as long as there are nuclear weapons in the world, the US will have nuclear weapons. We will not unilaterally disarm. We will maintain our nuclear deterrent,” Clinton said.

Not surprisingly, US President Barack Obama would set the ball rolling for discussions at the summit with a series of bilateral meetings Sunday starting with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and later with Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani.

Obama would also meet leaders of South Africa and Kazakhstan, two countries that gave up their nuclear weapons programme voluntarily, Sunday and Chinese President Hu Jintao Monday morning.

A communique to be issued at the end of the summit Tuesday recognises that nuclear terrorism is a serious threat and wants countries to endorse a pledge to take steps both at national and international level to strengthen nuclear security and prevent terrorists and criminal groups from gaining access to atomic weapons.

The communique and other conference documents were finalised at the final meeting here of summit Sherpas, or senior officials, chaired by Gary Samore, senior adviser to the US president on proliferation. Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao represented India.

The summit, Samore said in a conference call Friday, “is focused on a very specific issue of securing nuclear materials and cooperating to prevent nuclear smuggling in order to reduce as much as possible the threat that terrorist groups or criminal gangs get their hands on nuclear materials that can be used for nuclear weapons”.

After the welcoming ceremony Monday, Obama will host “a very important kick off working dinner”, as Samore put it.

“The focus of this opening dinner is on the threat and the magnitude of the threat,” he said calling it a “a really critical component of the summit”.

The dinner is going to set the stage for the discussions Tuesday on measures that can be taken in order to reduce the risk and to defeat the threat, he said.

At the summit, Manmohan Singh and Hu will be among the few leaders who would outline their respective national plans to ensure safety of nuclear materials to set the ball rolling in the first plenary.

As Deputy US National Security Adviser Michael Froman said during a recent US-India Business Council meeting: “Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s attendance will be key to the success of the summit.”

(Arun Kumar can be contacted at arun.kumar@ians.in )