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India not to sign CTBT now, says Brajesh Mishra: PTI

Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee will not meet Pakistani military ruler General Pervez Musharraf in New York on the sidelines of the United Nations Millennium Summit next week nor does India have any plans to sign the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty in the immediate foreseeable future, the prime minister's principal secretary Brajesh Mishra said.

"There is no question of Vajpayee meeting Musharraf in New York," Mishra told Outlook magazine.

Maintaining that India signing the CTBT was not on anyone's agenda either, he said "anything can happen on the CTBT only after a consensus is achieved at home."

"That hasn't happened so far. But there is no question of any pressure. There are no plans to sign the CTBT in the immediate foreseeable future, before or after Vajpayee's visit," Mishra said, according to a press release issued by the magazine.

Vajpayee is scheduled to leave on a 13-day visit to the US on September seven during which he would address the UN summit and meet President Bill Clinton in Washington.

Discounting speculations that the US was instrumental in the Centre's initiative on Jammu and Kashmir, he said the Kashmir issue could only figure in the context of Indo-Pak ties during the Prime Minister's forthcoming visit.

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