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Responding to a series of questions posed by Rajya Sabha Member Shri Yashwant Sinha, with respect to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s Suo motu statement in Parliament on his overseas visits, Dr Singh clarified that “there is no ambiguity in India’s stand on the veto power of permanent members of the United Nations Security Council. “Let me remove any doubts, if there are any doubts” the Prime Minister said, and added: “There is no ambiguity in our stand. There is no confusion. At this point all permanent members of the UNSC have veto power. We do not believe there should be any discrimination in the permanent-membership status in the UNSC.” The Prime Minister further added that there was “no clarity on what shape the Security Council reforms would eventually take. Let us not pre-judge the outcome. The United Nations is a complex organization and we have to see how this debate on United Nations reform moves forward.” He said India was in touch with the G-4 nations - Germany, Japan and Brazil, and that “it is not clear what the final outcome would be.”
On the Government’s stance on India’s nuclear status also the Prime Minister said there was “no ambiguity”. He repeated his earlier statement in Parliament that “India is a nuclear weapon State.” He added that India remains committed to her civilisational approach to complete non-discriminatory universal nuclear disarmament.” To a question on the status of nuclear fuel supply from Russia, the Prime Ministers said, “Russia has stated that it will honour all its contractual obligations.”
To a question on the reference to terrorism in the joint press statement issued by the Prime Minister and Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf in New York, the Prime Minister said, “I do not share the perception of any dilution (as alleged by Mr Sinha) of India’s stance as articulated in the January 6th, 2004 joint statement of President Musharraf and Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee. Dr. Manmohan Singh said that he emphasized to President Musharraf the criticality of his fulfilling the reassurance of January 6, 2004, that any territory under Pakistan’s control would not be used to support terrorism in any manner. The Prime Minister reiterated that “If this does not happen, all other confidence building measures would have no meaning”.
In response to a question on whether the Prime Minister discussed US arms supply to Pakistan with President Bush in New York, Dr. Singh said that he had not discussed this issue with the US President, but the matter was taken up by the Government with US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld during the latter’s recent visit to India.
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