Pakistan has rejected a proposal from India to join the talks on the Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty (FMCT) at the next session of the Conference on Disarmament (CD), officials here said.
“The Indian proposal has been rejected. We considered it but decided against it,” a senior government official said.
The next session of the CD is likely to commence in the third week of January.
“Yes, this proposal came up for discussions from the Indian side during the recently concluded talks on CBMs (Confidence Building Measures) but we refused to oblige owing to its stated position on the vital issue that the treaty must cover the existing stocks of fissile material possessed by India and other nuclear states,” said the official.
At present, Pakistan is the only hold-out at the CD among 65 countries in talks on the FMCT, a proposed global pact that will ban the production of nuclear bomb making material.
India had asked Pakistan to join the talks at the recently concluded two-day Pakistan-India talks on conventional and nuclear CBMs and said the proposed treaty could be an important step towards effective nuclear disarmament. Apart from India coming up with this proposal, Pakistan had also been facing immense pressure from the United States to sign the FMCT.
***
Cops caught helping top militant
MANOJ ANAND
Guwahati, Jan. 3
Investigating agencies have found documentary evidences against Assam police officials who were helping top militant leaders in judicial custody by facilitating mobile phones and prolonging stay in hospital cabin instead of jail. Disclosing that self-styled commander-in-chief of Dima Halam Daogah Niranjan Hojai was using mobile phone in judicial custody to handle his business in foreign countries, authoritative security sources said that investigation has revealed that Mr Hojai was using a mobile owned by a police officer to contact his business partners in Nepal and Singapore. The records available with security agencies revealed that militant leader made thousands of calls by the mobile while in judicial custody at Guwahati Medical College Hospital.
The last call was made on May 19, 2011 by the mobile phone which was taken back soon after investigating agencies started his interrogation. Informing that Mr Hojai had taken the citizenship of Nepal in 2006 by paying an amount of `35000 to a person in Nepal, security sources said that they also found evidences against Mr Hojai of transferring an amount of $1.85lakh from Singapore Citi Bank, (International Personal Bank) to Nepal SBI Bank Ltd, Kathmandu.