New Delhi, Jan 19 (IANS) Favouring an urgent review of the UN’s outer space treaty, former Indian Air Force chief S. Krishnaswamy Wednesday called for plugging holes in the agreement to prevent space from being weaponised.
‘India would like to appeal to the international community to see that the holes (in the treaty) must be plugged,’ Krishnaswamy said at an international conference on ‘Space, Science and Security’ here.
‘We also need a strong policing force in the UN. If somebody crosses the line, we need to bring them down quickly,’ he said at the three-day conference organised by the Observer Research Foundation, the Secure World Foundation, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute and the Jawaharlal Nehru University.
He said the authors of the Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space had left ‘some gaps’ in it and probably with a sense of purpose. ‘After all, law is very clever,’ he said.
Asking if there was a way to fill the gaps, he said the treaty implicitly allowed military activity, including transit of nuclear weapons like intercontinental ballistic missiles and intermediate range ballistic missiles.
He said as per the treaty, non-weapons of mass destruction and non-nuclear weapons could be used from space on targets on earth or in space itself.
He said the treaty also allowed testing of all weapons in space and floating military bases. Moreover, there was no ban on anti-satellite, anti-missile weapons, as the treaty talked of outer space as being free for all nation states to utilise.
‘We all should get together and work for peaceful use of space,’ he told the conference attended by delegates from the US, Australia, Switzerland, Israel and other countries, noting that ‘if something bad (from space) happens, it will be devastating. Indeed, the earth will burn off.’
Pointing out that India was living in a very difficult environment, Krishnaswamy said the country needed a good space programme, which was imaginative, special and took care of all defence needs.
‘I don’t trust anybody. We have learnt our lessons and so, we need to defend ourselves,’ he added.
