NEW DELHI, OCT 18: Rejection of CTBT by the US Senate has given India enough elbow space to analyse the whole issue afresh and take its own time deciding about signing it without undue haste."Now we can turn down the signing of CTBT as the United States has done for rejecting the ratification," director of the Institute for Peace And Conflict Studies, P R Chari said."Instead of going hastily, India must have a careful assessment of the CTBT in the changing situation, senior defence expert K Subrahmanyam said."India is always ahead of others. And has been the author of the campaign for total elimination and banning tests of nuclear weapons, so, we should be worried about the US not ratifying the treaty than hastily going ahead and signing the CTBT," said former Indian ambassador to the US Abid Hussain.India is not opposed to the CTBT, but the rule should be applicable uniformly to all the countries without any discrimination, former foreign secretary J N Dixit said."India has already announcedmoratorium on further nuclear testing. So, signing or not signing will hardly change any course of action on our part," Chari said."The US has largest stockpile of nuclear weapons. So that is more worrisome for the world than India and Pakistan not signing the CTBT, Hussain said.Let all the members of the "P-5" Club first ratify the treaty, only then India should go for it, said Amitabh Mattoo of the Jawaharlal Nehru University here."We must wait for Russia and China to ratify the CTBT as also the US Senate takes a final decision over the treaty," Mattoo said.
