A defiant India conducted two more underground nuclear tests yesterday, two days after carrying out three others at the same testing ground in the western desert region.
Meanwhile the United States warned that economic sanctions on India announced yesterday, in spite of an Indian appeal against them, would have a "profound" impact on US firms.
"It could cause major US companies and financial institutions to rethink entirely their presence and operations in India," the State Department spokesman, Mr James Rubin, said.
Under a 1994 law invoked by President Clinton, the US must oppose all lending to India by international financial institutions, and experts say that blow could be the cruellest.
An official statement said the tests at Pokharan, involving two "sub-kilotonne" explosions, took place at 12.21 p.m. (local time) and had completed the "planned" series of tests to generate data for computer simulations and sub-critical experiments.
It said the tests were fully contained "with no release of radioactivity into the atmosphere". No more details were available.
The statement added that India would now reconsider its opposition to the nuclear Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) and consider adhering to "some of the undertakings" in it. The Prime Minister, Mr A.B. Vajpayee, also appealed to nations not to impose economic sanctions for its testing but said that if they were determined to do so, then Indians would face it. He added that ideally the world should be free of nuclear weapons, but divisions existed on that score. In an indirect reference to the US, he said that some countries considered nuclear weapons as their exclusive right. "We cannot accept this," he said.
Officials, meanwhile, maintain that India could not only survive sanctions but because of the tests also gain leverage to influence the final CTBT draft and extract concessions from the US, like advanced technology for civilian and military use and an enhanced role in international and UN organisations.
Meanwhile, Indian shares plunged 4 per cent for the second consecutive day following the news of sanctions by the US and Japan and of the two new tests. "There is a blood-bath on the market," said Mr Gaurav Sanghvi, a stockbroker in Bombay, India's financial capital. A survey done for the Times of India newspaper in six Indian metropolitan cities, including Delhi, Bombay and Madras, revealed that 91 per cent of respondents approved nuclear testing, 82 per cent wanted nuclear weapons while only 39 per cent favoured signing the CTBT.
Mark Brennock adds: The Minister for Foreign Affairs summoned the Indian charge d'affaires in Ireland to the Department of Foreign Affairs yesterday to express the Government's "profound dismay" at the five nuclear explosions carried out in India this week.
Mr Andrews told Mr Rajendra Kumar Tyagi that India had treated world public opinion with contempt and had been justly condemned by Ireland and its EU partners.
"India's policy declarations on nuclear disarmament over five decades have been proven hollow in the light of its actions," Mr Andrews said in a statement after meeting Mr Tyagi. "The emergence of a further nuclear weapon state now would be a most serious setback for the prospect of the elimination of nuclear weapons."
Ireland will redouble its efforts to have the nuclear weapon states fulfil their legally binding obligations to eliminate nuclear weapons, he said.
