Foreign Secretary K Raghunath said that India has not been invited to attend the Review Conference, in an interview to Doordarshan. However, there is no bar on India attending the conference as even non-signatories to the treaty can attend.

Although yesterday National Security Advisor and Principal Secretary to the PM Brajesh Mishra had said that India was in favour of signing the CTBT, the Ministry of External Affairs seems to have decided not to push the issue while the election process is still on.

The MEA's cautious approach partially took the sting out of the Congress attack today. The party trained its guns on Mishra saying that his statements on the CTBTwere a ``matter of deep concern''. Party spokesman Kapil Sibal demanded that the Government unambiguously declare its stance since it had been making contradictory statements on the sensitive matter.

After the barrage of criticism from the Congress, BJP spokesman K L Sharma said that India would not sign the CTBT till the matter was discussed in Parliament. The Vienna Review Conference is likely to be attended by all the 154 states that have signed the treaty including the United States, Russia and China besides the 47 states that include, Japan, France, Australia and United Kingdom, that have ratified the treaty. Some countries who are not signatories may also be present. The conference is expected to discuss measures to persuade the 44 states--including the US, Russia, China, India and Pakistan--to ratify the treat for it to come into force under Article XIV of the CTBT.