By Rajeswari Pillai Rajagopalan and Arka Biswas
There are compelling reasons for India to join – and preserve – the Non-Proliferation Treaty.
The nuclear non-proliferation order is clearly in trouble. The failure of the recently concluded NPT Review Conference (RevCon) over issues of nuclear disarmament and the Middle East Nuclear Weapons Free Zone (MENWFZ) highlighted the challenges the international community faces. India, as always, did not participate in the RevCon, but India has an important stake in the survival of the regime. Equally, the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) needs India more than ever, not only because of India’s strong ideational and policy support for non-proliferation but also its increasing stature in global affairs.
The differences at the RevCon were stark. Although NPT members eventually agreed to a text for the outcome document, the month-long review conference saw heated debate on how to ban nuclear weapons and establish a world free of nuclear weapons. The gap between nuclear weapon states (NWS) and non-nuclear weapon states (NNWS) on the approach to nuclear disarmament has widened since the 2010 NPT Review Conference. Similarly, on the MENWFZ, NPT members remained divided over a proposal sponsored by Egypt that called for regional conference to ban weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in the Middle East, leading some Western observers to label Egypt as “the spoiler” of the RevCon.
Read the full story at The Diplomat