William Perry
a member of US President-elect Barack Obama's transition team
and a former defence secretary
New Delhi
15 November 2008
and a former defence secretary in the Clinton era, wants to see India and Pakistan build
nuclear confidence by collaborating on issues such as safety and transparency.
In an exclusive interview here, Perry suggested the nuclear-armed rivals to emulate the
US and the erstwhile USSR, which at the height of the Cold War, agreed on the
Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty in 1987.
"That's the model you have to look at. In terms of bilateral agreements, that's the one I'd
recommend India and Pakistan to look at," he said.
The Democrat is on a mission to, as he put it, engage like-minded countries such as
India in Track-Two diplomacy in order to help advance nuclear disarmament.
Perry thought India and the US ought to play leadership roles and work toward ratifying
the CTBT.
"My top priority working with the new (Obama) administration is not only get it to resend
it (CTBT) to the Senate but to work hard for [its] ratification," he said. If India were also to
join the US it would signal they are serious, he added.
"My recommendation [to Obama] would be to work bilaterally with Russia on a new arms
control agreement that will include verification procedures," he said.
Perry is working with Obama on a new US nuclear strategy document, called a Nuclear
Posture Review, which will begin to take shape after Obama takes over as President in
early 2009. It is likely to make positive statements for reassuring the world that the US is
not a danger.
Perry suggested a four-fold path to "going to zero": Ratifying the CTBT by the US, China
and India; negotiating the FMCT; revisiting respective nuclear doctrines to make them
"less threatening to the rest of world"; and reducing nuclear danger, including the risks
of accidental use of nuclear weapons.
Some of proposals resemble India's, which recently submitted a Working Paper on
Nuclear Disarmament to the UN General Assembly.
Perry, along with fellow Democrat and former chairman of US Senate Armed Services
Committee Sam Nunn and two Republicans -- former Secretaries of State Henry
Kissinger and George Shultz, is spearheading an initiative to reduce the salience of
nuclear weapons in international security relations.
No comments:
Post a Comment