'No squabbling for Indian nuke button'

The commander of the Indian armed forces tried Thursday to bury a controversy that the army, airforce and navy were reluctant to surrender their nuclear arsenals to a newly-formed strategic command.

Admiral Madhvendera Singh, the current rotating chief of the joint armed forces command, dismissed growing rumblings as speculation and said the strategic command would decide on the "utilization and use of nuclear weapons."

"There will be no problems over the transfer of command and control of the nuclear weapons," Singh told reporters on the eve of a five-day visit to Iran.

Singh, who is also the head of India's navy, said the commander of the strategic force would report to him and in turn he would convey the message to a Nuclear Command Authority, which will then determine the use of such weapons.

The admiral's comments were significant amid the ongoing reconfiguration of the Indian airforce's British-built Jaguar bombers, French Mirage-2000 jets and Russian Sukhoi planes to carry nuclear weapons.

New Delhi last month ignored appeals by the three services to hold charge of India's nuclear weapons and set up a two-tier command and control centre that places the nuclear button in the hands of Prime Minister Atal Bhari Vajpayee.

It also decided India would keep to its pledge of "no-first-strike" of nuclear weapons.

The government said the Nuclear Command Authority would comprise two bodies -- an executive council to coordinate the administrative work, chaired by national security adviser Brajesh Mishra, and a political council headed by Vajpayee.