NEW DELHI, May 16: India scored a major diplomatic victory on Tuesday when it was elected unopposed chairman of the executive council of the global treaty on chemical weapons at a meeting at The Hague.

The 41-member executive council of the treaty, known as the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, is a powerful body responsible for surveillance and monitoring of worldwide stocks of chemical weapons, comparable to the board of governors of international agencies like the IAEA.

The Indian team, led by secretary (west) Lalit Mansingh in the ministry of external affairs, had been lobbying strongly with the Asian group the week before the meeting. By Tuesday morning, it received not only the endorsement of the Asian group but also the backing of the other western groups.

Sources in the ministry of external affairs said the chairmanship of the council would give India the perfect opportunity to put its stamp on what it believes is a ``model disarmament treaty.''

The global treaty entered into force on April 29 after 78 members, including the US and China at the last minute ratified the convention. New Delhi, acknowledging that it held stockpiles, had in the middle of April threatened to withdraw from the treaty if Washington did not ratify it.

The US had held out until the last week of April, when the Clinton administration used every tactic in the book to persuade the Republican-majority Senate to do so.

New Delhi's own decision to deposit the instrument of ratification for the treaty in early September had also come in for some criticism, especially by defence analysts who felt it had been done in ``undue haste.''

According to reports, the ministry of chemicals was overly keen that India quickly became part of the treaty .

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.