US pushed N Korea to brink: CPM

CPM advises India to abandon nuclear weapons, justifies North Korea going nuclear.

US pushed N Korea to brink: CPM
From Shruba Mukherjee DH News Service New Delhi:
Terming the nuclear test conducted by the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea as an unfortunate act, the CPM said on Wednesday that the US was singularly responsible for creating deep sense of insecurity pushing Pyongyang into taking such steps.

The CPM statement, which came two days after North Korea conducted nuclear tests, also asked the UPA Government to “boldly decide” to initiate and press for a nuclear disarmament agenda and commit to rollback its own nuclear weaponisation program as part of this process.

“The Indian government has condemned the test, stating that it is against nuclear proliferation and the creation of another nuclear weapon state. In 1998, when India conducted the Pokhran tests, the worldwide condemnation was on the same grounds,” the party said.


“The Indian stand has always been that the Nuclear Proliferation Treaty is discriminatory and hence it refused to be a signatory. After declaring itself a nuclear weapon state, India’s stand that other countries should not acquire nuclear weapons does not carry much conviction,” it said.

“Likewise, if Israel can stockpile 200 plus nuclear weapons, how can India argue against Iran exercising its legitimate right as the signatory of the treaty to conduct uranium enrichment?” it asked.

The CPM said the nuclear test by North Korea would create new tensions in the East Asian region. The global moratorium on nuclear tests, which had not been violated since India and Pakistan conducted tests in 1998, had now been broken, it said.

However, the CPM claimed that this ‘destabilising act’ should be seen in the context of US aggression.

Ever since the 1950s, the United States had intimidated and threatened North Korea. Apart from stationing 40,000 troops, the United States placed nuclear weapons in South Korea and conducted regular joint military exercises with them.

The North Korean government has stated that it is arming itself with the nuclear deterrent to protect its national sovereignty and to possess a “powerful self-reliant defence capability”.

“The United States is singularly responsible for creating this deep sense of insecurity for North Korea. The country has directly experienced the savagery of the American war machine during the Korean war that led to the division of the Korean peninsula,” the CPM said.

The party also reiterated its opposition to purchasing arms from Israel in the wake of a CBI investigation into the Barak missile deal and demanded that the case should be “pursued impartially” in view of allegations that firms from that country indulged in bribery.

In a statement, the party Polit Bureau said the case against former defence minister George Fernandes and former Chief of Naval Staff Admiral Sushil Kumar for receiving kickbacks in the Barak deal once again highlighted the “high level of corruption” which takes place in such deals.

“It is shocking that successive governments have failed to tackle this problem and prefer to let a nexus of ruling politicians, bureaucrats and arms dealers to indulge in corrupt practices,” it added.

Tags:

• CPM
  
• COMINTERN
  

Souce: Deccan Herald