UNSC resolution may leave Indian policy makers squirming

Pittsburgh: India has chosen to reiterate long-held positions with respect to non-proliferation and nuclear weapons in a letter to the Security Council even as the United States tightens the noose around its neck with respect to compliance with the provisions of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Already squirming at the frontal assault launched by the Obama administration, Indian policy makers will now be looking to protect their flanks with respect to the provisions of the recently concluded Indo-US nuclear treaty, which now faces the likelihood of being impacted by the latest United Nations Security Council resolution passed at the behest of the United States.

Last year, at a fiercely contested international meet held at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) headquarters in Vienna, India managed to wrangle special status for itself from the Nuclear Supplier's Group as well as the IAEA. This, of course, left the well-funded and very influential non-proliferation lobby around the world, and particularly so in the United States, seething with anger and frustration.

What will cause immense uncertainty in the corridors of power at South Block in New Delhi now is the fact that the latest US-sponsored UNSC resolution remains ominously silent on last years' NSG and IAEA waiver granted to India. Quite simply, the billion-dollar question in quite a few policy making circles around the world would be the extent to which the latest UNSC resolution is going to impact last year's path-breaking events at the IAEA meet at Vienna.

 India's rather eager strategic shift towards the United States in world affairs, which may have imparted it some very obvious gains with a sympathetic Republican administration in the White House,  now leaves it stranded up the proverbial tree without a ladder as an immature, and ideologically motivated, Democratic dispensation makes its first major policy moves in foreign affairs.

For the record, the UNSC resolution passed at a summit level meeting convened by president Barack Obama on 24 September, calls for tightening international controls on the proliferation of nuclear weapons, including universalising membership of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and the immediate adherence to its norms by non-parties.

A last-minute US addition also reaffirms the outcomes of the 1995 and 2000 NPT review conferences which sought to introduce comprehensive safeguards as a condition for nuclear supply.