EFFORTS to halt the nuclear arms race through a United Nations treaty banning all weapons tests have failed to reach agreement. Delegates to the Geneva disarmament conference will be left this morning with a compromise treaty draft which only France, among the five nuclear weapons powers, is prepared to adopt.
Two and a half years of diplomatic bargaining have finally stalled because of India's demand that the treaty should also contain a timetable for nuclear disarmament and Britain's insistence backed by China, Pakistan and Russia, but not the United States that the treaty would be useless without India.
"There will be no decision, just a document," the UK ambassador to the talks, Sir Michael Weston, said yesterday. "I hope we will be able to say yes. But the hope as fir as India is concerned is not great."
Britain has argued that the treaty should only come into force when it has been ratified not only by states which admit to possessing the bomb, but also by the "threshold" states, India, Israel and Pakistan, which have the capability. A test ban, in London's view, is not worth having unless everyone who can test supports it.
Washington is much more relaxed about this issue, but has taken a hard line on intrusive verification of the proposed treaty.
Indian disenchantment with the UN's approach was highlighted yesterday when its ambassador, Ms Arundati Ghose, announced that her country would also he withdrawing from the global seismic monitoring system that would help verify the accord.
"Our problems relate to the substance of the treaty," she said. "From 1954 we have been going on about a CTBT (comprehensive test ban treaty) being a step towards disarmament. We want a genuine commitment to eliminate nuclear weapons within a finite time frame."