India Seeking Wide Choice of Partners in Pursuing Nuke Commerce: Shyam Saran

Thaindian
Mar 15, 2008

New Delhi (ANI): Former Foreign Secretary and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s Special Envoy on the Indo-U.S.-India civil nuclear deal, Shyam Saran, has said that India’s objective in going through with it is to have a wide choice of partners in pursuing nuclear commerce and high technology trade. Speaking in an interview with gfiles, Saran said Indian negotiators have been given a firm guideline not to accept any limitation whatsoever on “our strategic weapons programme, which must remain inviolate and fully autonomous.” According to Saran, this guideline from the UPA Government implied that India’s strategic weapons programme would be outside the purview of any international safeguards regime or any form of external scrutiny. It also implied that India would have the ability to further develop and produce weapons without be constrained in any manner, and thirdly, New Delhi would retain the legal right to conduct a nuclear test at anytime in the future.