Rocca: Frosty ties

Washington, May 21: Contrary to the whisper that South Block is putting out in order not to rock the boat on the Indo-US nuclear deal, India may not have the luxury of producing fissile material for nuclear weapons for any longer than a few months.

Stephen Rademaker, the US assistant secretary of state for international security and non-proliferation, has said in Geneva after formally tabling a draft Fissile material Cut-off Treaty (FMCT) before the UN Conference on Disarmament (CD) that the Bush administration wants the treaty to be approved for signature by the international community “by the end of this year’s CD session”.

India now has to think long and hard before extending any support for the latest US non-proliferation initiative because Rademaker also issued a veiled threat at the CD to pull America out of this UN body unless its members were ready to toe the Bush administration’s line.

Formally announcing the nomination of a new US ambassador to the CD, Rademaker attempted to bully other countries into agreeing to his mandate and negotiating schedule for a new FMCT.

“I urge all delegations to work with us in order to ensure that she does not serve as the last US ambassador to the CD,” he threatened.

India’s dilemma on what to do with the new US plans to stop the global production of weapons grade uranium and plutonium for military purposes is compounded by President George W. Bush’s new choice of that ambassador.

She is Christina Rocca, the former US assistant secretary of state for South Asia. India has had a frosty relationship with Rocca during her five years as the pointperson for South Asia in the state department.

Her inability to gain New Delhi’s trust was the main reason why US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice edged her out of that post to enable Rice to pursue the Bush administration’s committed policy of deepening relations with India.

It is unlikely that Rocca will be able to work with the Indians on an FMCT in Geneva, especially because of her past equation with Jayant Prasad, the Indian ambassador to the CD.

Prasad was her counterpart in South Block during most of Rocca’s tenure as America’s pointperson for South Asia.

All decisions at the CD are by consensus. The ministry of external affairs is, therefore, discreetly putting out word in New Delhi and is understood to have even briefed the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) that India has nothing to worry about a FMCT since there will be no consensus in Geneva.

But, in fact, Rademaker is seeking to short-circuit this procedure for a quick agreement.

As part of a draft negotiating mandate he proposed in Geneva, the US wants the CD to set up an “ad hoc committee to negotiate a non-discriminatory and multilateral treaty banning the production of fissile material for nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices”.

India is expected to be a member of any such committee and will then come under renewed pressure to toe Washington’s line.

Already, Hamid Eslamizad, Iran’s ambassador to the CD, has pointed out that in 2003, the US had brought up Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction at the CD.

“A few months later, American troops attacked Iraq in search of weapons of mass destruction and terrorist camps and no weapons of mass destruction had been found.... Nobody should take the statement of the US as real facts.”