The initiative taken by the American bipartisan group of former Republican secretaries of state, George Schultz and Henry Kissinger, and Democratic statesmen, former Defence Secretary William Perry and former Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Sam Nunn, has revived interest in nuclear disarmament in the West. Two Democratic contenders for the presidency, Senator Obama and Senator Clinton, have also expressed support for the initiative. A conference was recently held in Norway on February 26-27 to mobilise support for the initiative. In the Norway conference, while Nunn and his US colleagues reiterated the initiative, some of the other participants including IAEA Director Mohamed ElBaradei, criticised some provisions in the initiative, particularly on cooperative missile defence.

In India on February 5, addressing the Asian Security Conference of the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses, External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee said: “Personalities such as Henry Kissinger, George Schultz, Sam Nunn and William Perry who were at the centre of crafting nuclear policy and who thought that nuclear weapons were essential to the security of their state are having a rethink today. We welcome this development and hope it leads, as envisaged in the Rajiv Gandhi Action Plan, to a commitment by all states to a nuclear weapon free world.”

While the initiative of Schultz and his associates has not received the support of the present US Administration, India has extended its welcome not only in the above statement of the external affairs minister, but also in a formal statement of its ambassador, Hamid Ali Rao, at the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva on February 28.

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