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India right in voting against Iran: Tharoor
Justifying India`s vote against Iran on its nuclear programme, former union minister Shashi Tharoor has said it was in line with the principle that Tehran had agreed to the terms of NPT and hence had to abide by it.
Tel Aviv: Justifying India`s vote against
Iran on its nuclear programme, former union minister Shashi Tharoor has said it was in line with the principle that Tehran had agreed to the terms of NPT and hence had to abide by it.
"We said we didn`t sign it, but you did sign it (NPT). Since you did sign it you are subject to all the standards of IAEA and if you are found to be not in compliance, or doing things to hide from them, then we will vote against you because you have violated the very principles for which you had made solemn declarations," Tharoor said addressing a gathering at Tel Aviv university.
Tharoor, former minister of State for External Affairs and UN Under-Secretary-General for Communications and Public Information, made the comments in response to a query regarding India`s position on Nuclear non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT).
India twice voted against Iran in the International Atomic Energy Agency in 2005 and 2009.
"I am not hiding anything in saying that India is not a fan of NPT and has not been from the very beginning. We thought that it was a deeply misguided treaty which essentially enshrined apartheid in international law, which basically said that only five countries had the right to have something that nobody else did, and for us it was fundamentally unacceptable," he said.
"It was wrong morally, ethically, legally and logically. What we would have been very much in favour of, and remain strongly in favour of, is total universal nuclear disarmament", he emphasised.
Tharoor, who is on a visit to Israel to attend the annual Herzliya conference which attracts leading Israeli politicians and experts from world over, however, said that India "could have accepted the NPT if the provisions of disarmament were strengthened, were taken seriously, and there were evidence of implementation".
"As you know there have been very little of any of those and we are simply not prepared to accept any logic that says Britain or France or China for that matter can have a weapon that we can`t have," Tharoor argued.
However, we tend to take a somewhat perverse position as good international citizens that those who have signed have to uphold their obligations under it which is why we have taken the position on Iran, he noted.
The former UN official also pointed out that India as a general policy has never been in favour of proliferation and in its entire nuclear history has never been guilty of slightest act of proliferation.
Reacting to the issue of CTBT, Tharoor said that "it is little more complicated".
"India`s objection to signing CTBT is more of a principle than practice because we had no intentions to test again following the 1998 test", he said.
"We just don`t like other people telling us not to test. I think it is pretty clear that if all the other countries agree to sign, India will not alone hold on to its position", he said.
PTI
"We said we didn`t sign it, but you did sign it (NPT). Since you did sign it you are subject to all the standards of IAEA and if you are found to be not in compliance, or doing things to hide from them, then we will vote against you because you have violated the very principles for which you had made solemn declarations," Tharoor said addressing a gathering at Tel Aviv university.
Tharoor, former minister of State for External Affairs and UN Under-Secretary-General for Communications and Public Information, made the comments in response to a query regarding India`s position on Nuclear non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT).
India twice voted against Iran in the International Atomic Energy Agency in 2005 and 2009.
"I am not hiding anything in saying that India is not a fan of NPT and has not been from the very beginning. We thought that it was a deeply misguided treaty which essentially enshrined apartheid in international law, which basically said that only five countries had the right to have something that nobody else did, and for us it was fundamentally unacceptable," he said.
"It was wrong morally, ethically, legally and logically. What we would have been very much in favour of, and remain strongly in favour of, is total universal nuclear disarmament", he emphasised.
Tharoor, who is on a visit to Israel to attend the annual Herzliya conference which attracts leading Israeli politicians and experts from world over, however, said that India "could have accepted the NPT if the provisions of disarmament were strengthened, were taken seriously, and there were evidence of implementation".
"As you know there have been very little of any of those and we are simply not prepared to accept any logic that says Britain or France or China for that matter can have a weapon that we can`t have," Tharoor argued.
However, we tend to take a somewhat perverse position as good international citizens that those who have signed have to uphold their obligations under it which is why we have taken the position on Iran, he noted.
The former UN official also pointed out that India as a general policy has never been in favour of proliferation and in its entire nuclear history has never been guilty of slightest act of proliferation.
Reacting to the issue of CTBT, Tharoor said that "it is little more complicated".
"India`s objection to signing CTBT is more of a principle than practice because we had no intentions to test again following the 1998 test", he said.
"We just don`t like other people telling us not to test. I think it is pretty clear that if all the other countries agree to sign, India will not alone hold on to its position", he said.
PTI