US Won’t Pressurise India, Pak to Ink NPT: Tauscher

Describing India and Pakistan as its ‘very special friends’, the US has said that it won’t mount pressure on the two nations to ink the nuclear non-proliferation treaty (NPT), reported ANI.

Talking to reporters in Washington, US Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Ellen Tauscher said that the US keeps in direct touch with the two countries over different important issues and holds daily discussions with them, report said.

“The countries that you mentioned are very special friends of the United States. We have conversations with them every day about many different things,” Tauscher was quoted as saying.

She made the remarks in response to a query if the US will persuade New Delhi and Islamabad to sign the NPT.

“We would like all countries to sign onto the NPT. We have a universality commitment, yes,” she added.

Noting that more and more countries are competing to gain nuke know-how, she warned that the world now faced more danger than it did during the Cold War era, said report.

“We have terrorist groups and organised crime and other bad actors that are looking to acquire nuclear technology, nuclear know-how and nuclear material. And secondarily, we have more states looking to acquire nuclear weapons than we have had in the last 15 years,” ‘The Dawn’ quoted Tauscher as saying.

Responding to a question whether the White House feels that both India and Pakistan must chop down their nuclear arms race and decrease the stockpile of the weapons of mass destruction (WMD), Tauscher diplomatically said that her views as a lawyer were quite different from her views as a senior US official, said report.

“Congresswoman Tauscher and Under Secretary Tauscher occupy the same body but not in the same time. What I did in the Congress was one thing, and I get quite used to accepting when things pass and letting them go on,” Tauscher was quoted as saying.

Tauscher, who had strongly opposed the Indo-US civil nuclear deal, acknowledged that Washington shares a significant relationship with New Delhi, and that being the under-secretary it was now her duty to implement the India-US nuclear accord, report said.

“I’m very honoured to have been in India late last year, we have a very vibrant and very significant relationship with India,” she was quoted as saying.