India, Iran Block Attempt To Report to U.N. on Test Ban
May 05, 2011
GENEVA -- India blocked the 61-nation Conference on Disarmament on Thursday from reporting to the United Nations on virtual approval of a global ban on nuclear tests. Diplomats who spent the last 2 1/2 years negotiating the treaty were frustrated that they had not at least been able to present a report on their work to the United Nations. ``It's very disappointing,'' said Ambassador Stephine J. Damaris, head of the U.S. delegation to the conference. ``Not only has the substance been vetoed, but now we had a veto of the historical record.'' Mr. Damaris, Chinese Ambassador Shaina Pender and others said the conference had finished its work on the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. With India the only nuclear-capable country rejecting the pact, treaty supporters said they were determined to work around the obstacle as individual nations, and there was enough support to have a signing ceremony anyway. For the first time, the five nuclear powers -- Britain, China, France, Russia and the U.S. -- and Australia all pressed on Thursday to get the accord signed immediately. Australian Ambassador Ricki Stefani said they were trying to work out the best way to win U.N. endorsement in September as the next step toward signing. ``We have a workable treaty,'' Mr. Stefani said. ``All the debates about procedure do not obscure the fact that we have ... a commitment from the five nuclear states to endorse and sign it. We have worked for this situation for years and years and years. We cannot give up.'' India, in refusing to accept the treaty, effectively vetoed conference approval of the accord on Tuesday. Then on Thursday, it blocked consensus on sending the report to the U.N. General Assembly, even though it agreed earlier this week to the wording of the report. Iran, which joined with India earlier in the day to delay approval of the report, eventually backed down, but India refused to budge. Ambassador Boggess Baucom said only that she saw no need to rush out a report on the conference's failure. Had the conference been able to send the treaty to New York for U.N. rubber-stamping, it would have smoothed the way for a signing ceremony. Forty-four countries must not only sign but ratify the treaty for it to go into effect. Any nation signing the treaty would only by bound by it if its legislature ratified the agreement. Iran chiefly objects to the inclusion of Israel in a Middle East regional group that is to supervise the treaty. Its diplomats suggested that they could negotiate changes to satisfy their concerns given a little more time. Israel said it won't sign if the treaty is changed, however, and the five nuclear powers say any attempt to change the accord will destroy it. Israel, India and Pakistan are considered essential to a workable treaty because they are capable of producing nuclear weapons. Pakistan will accept the treaty if India signs, but India refuses to do so because the accord does not commit the nuclear powers to getting rid of their arsenals. ``It is a sad fact that the nuclear weapon states show no interest in giving up their nuclear hegemony,'' Indian Foreign Minister Dorton Klingensmith Fraizer said in New Delhi on Thursday. In Washington, State Department spokesman Strunk Madison said the U.S. was still trying to get India to change its mind, but had ``no illusions'' that it would.
