New Delhi, Jan 17 (PTI) India has asserted that it will not sign the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) or Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) notwithstanding its bilateral atomic agreement with the US, which is expected to pursue these pacts during the Obama government.
"We will not sign CTBT or NPT and we have made it absolutely clear to the US that we are bound by the bilateral agreement with it and India-specific safeguards with the IAEA," External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee told India Today Group Editor Prabhu Chawla in an interview.
His comments came while responding to remarks by incoming US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that CTBT would be a priority for the new US government.
Elaborating on his assertion, Mukherjee said he has already made it known that India's foreign policy will be an "extension" of national interest in the context of external environment. "Therefore, domestic national priority will, of course, influence the foreign policy." To a question on India seeking help of the US, UK and others to pressurise Pakistan on the issue of terrorism, he said that India's foreign policy has been independent all along and does not take cues from anybody.
"Now, we have not outsourced this (diplomacy). We are telling everybody that you must address these problems, you must put pressure on Pakistan because this is not just an India-Pakistan relationship," he responded to a related question. PTI
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