By KUNA,
New Delhi : India Tuesday called for a time-bound action plan for global nuclear disarmament.
Delivering the valedictory address at the two-day International Conference on “Towards a World Free of Nuclear Weapons” here this evening, India’s Vice-President Hamid Ansari called for a new methodology to achieve the objective of universal, transparent and non-discriminatory nuclear disarmament.
“To transform vision into reality, a plan and a timetable on the pattern of the Rajiv Gandhi Action Plan would be essential,” Ansari said.
The Indian Vice President was referring to an ‘Action Plan’ for gobal nuclear disarmament which late Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi presented to the UN General Assembly 20 years ago.
“We have seen that, hitherto, nuclear disarmament has become almost synonymous with nuclear non-proliferation. A change would be possible only through such an action plan,” Ansari stressed.
“The case for the possession of nuclear weapons needs to be assessed in strategic, legal, political, financial, developmental and environmental terms. Nuclear armament ends up being, in its implications, anti-poor and anti-development,” he said, adding, “Given the immobility of the current disarmament process, a new methodology may be worth a try”.
The conference was inaugurated by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh Monday. It was organised to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the ‘Action Plan’ initiated by India’s late prime minister Rajiv Gandhi. Twenty years ago, on June 9, Gandhi had addressed the Third Special Session on Disarmament of the UN General Assembly and announced an Action Plan.
Gandhi was Prime Minister from 1984-89 and was killed in 1991 by a LTTE suicide bomber.