It is futile to expect any considerable change in the NPT’s architecture (“ >No frisson in talks over fission ”, April 21). Discrepancies are still the essence of this treaty. The nuclear apartheid between Nuclear Weapon States and non-NWS is growing, as evident from the coercive diplomacy of the West and North Korea alike. The provisions of the IAEA have over time proved to be inadequate. Horizontal proliferation may have been slowed but it is definitely moving in an odd direction. A nuclear black market, terrorist outfits and rogue nations are imminent threats that cast a shadow over the goal of non-proliferation. Countries like India have proved that it’s not in the “words” of treaties that nations readily adhere to but in the will of nations to do so.
Shashank Jain,
New Delhi
