U.S. to push for India and Pak to join NPT

US will push for all states that are not members of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) including India and Pakistan to join the nuclear accord during the NPT Review Conference to be held next week at the U.N. headquarters.

“The U.S. has had a long—standing policy of supporting the universal adherence to NPT,” Susan Burk Special Representative of the President for nuclear non—proliferation told PTI, in response to a question whether Washington will address the question of New Delhi and Islamabad’s absence from the NPT.

“And I am quite confident that the issue will be raised during the review conference, and there will be a desire to recommit the parties’ support for that,” she added.

The NPT review conference is held every five years to assess the progress in reaching the goal set out in the treaty to stop the spread of nuclear weapons.

India, Pakistan and Israel have not signed the treaty.

The 2005 conference ended without any concrete result and was widely regarded as a failure.

The Bush Administration garnered a great deal of hostility for diluting disarmament goals.

During the recent Nuclear Summit hosted by U.S. President Barack Obama, U.N. Secretary—General Ban Ki—moon also called on all states to join the NPT.

“All member states who have not done so should participate in the NPT Treaty. That is an obligation of all member states of the U.N.,” he said.

Mr. Ban noted that the conference is a chance to make progress “on disarmament, on compliance with non-proliferation commitments, including the pursuit of a nuclear weapons free—zone in the Middle East; on the peaceful use of nuclear energy”.

Meanwhile, Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is expected to attend the meeting of the eighth review conference of the 1970 Nuclear Non—Proliferation Treaty, where US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is expected meet diplomats from more than 180 countries.

On Friday, U.S. officials also noted here that the Indo—US civilian nuclear deal has not weakened the NPT, as officials gather in New York next week for the once—in—a—five year NPT Review Conference.

The conference will be held at the same time as the U.S. along with France, Britain and Germany have been pushing Russia and China to impose the fourth round of sanctions against Iran.

“We don’t believe we weakened the NPT in our peaceful civilian nuclear deal with India,” Ellen Tauscher, Undersecretary of State for Arms Control told reporters here.

“It’s a deal that comes with safeguards, and it comes with a number of other transparency mechanisms that we think, frankly, add to the security and the non-proliferation concerns she said in response to a question.

Responding to a question on China-Pak deal on nuclear power plants, the US official refused to enter into any speculation but said that these things take a long time.

“I am not going to speculate on a future perhaps sale between China and Pakistan. These things take a long time. So I’m going to wait to see how that develops,” Mr. Tauscher said and added that the US is disappointed that Pakistan is blocking negotiations on the Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty.