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Sethna prefers NPT to deal

Says the non-proliferation treaty permits the exit of any signatory nation

MUMBAI: India will be better off signing the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which permits the exit of any signatory nation, rather than the nuclear deal with the United States that will bind the country for "perpetuity," nuclear scientist Homi Sethna has said.

"NPT may be discriminatory, but we will still be allowed to exit whereas in the current Indo-U.S. deal which is under negotiation, India will remain bound in perpetuity," Mr. Sethna said in his keynote address at the Forum of Integrated National Security here on Saturday.

"Therefore, I prefer NPT ... to signing the current deal [with the U.S.]," Mr. Sethna, former chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, said. "India is supposed to get only uranium for its nuclear programme to expand. Simply for this, so much compromising ... is uncalled for."

The scientist, credited with playing a key role in the 1974 nuclear blast that saw India's emergence as a nuclear weapons power, said: "The Americans are out of the nuclear power reactor building business for the last 25 years. So where is the question of [getting] technology from them? Therefore, [in order to end the current global sanctions on the nuclear programme] we rather sign the NPT and it will give an escape route from going through all this trauma of separation and getting a special status agreement with IAEA [under the additional protocol]. I do not know how we have been tied down to this situation."

Mr. Sethna said: "The Indian Government should now seriously think about it [signing the NPT]. Instead of being looked down upon as a non-signatory all the time, go ahead and sign and break it immediately, may be within three hours." — PTI

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