The Hindu : National : India, Pakistan may discuss nuclear CBMs

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Jun 18, 2004

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National

India, Pakistan may discuss nuclear CBMs

By Amit Baruah

NEW DELHI, JUNE 17. India and Pakistan are likely to engage in conceptual discussions on a range of issues relating to nuclear confidence-building measures, senior officials in the Ministry of External Affairs told this correspondent today.

Speaking ahead of the June 19-20 talks between Indian and Pakistani experts on the issue of nuclear confidence-building measures (CBMs), the officials, who preferred anonymity, said there would be no "great departures" from previous positions adopted by New Delhi.

A six-member team, led by Tariq Osman Haider, Additional Secretary in the Pakistani Foreign Ministry, arrives here on Friday. Other members of the team include: Jalil Abbas Jilani, Director-General, South Asia, who was expelled from India as Pakistan's Deputy High Commissioner by the BJP-led Government, Masood Khan (Director-General, United Nations, and Foreign Office spokesman) and Group Captain Banuri from the Strategic Plans Division, which handles Pakistan's nuclear arsenal.

Asked whether India would restate its no-first use (NFU) posture in the talks with Pakistan, the officials said that the NFU was certainly one of the elements of the Indian position.

The talks, spread over Saturday and Sunday, mark the first-ever occasion when Indian and Pakistani experts will sit across the table to specifically discuss nuclear CBMs after the two countries went overtly nuclear in May 1998.

These talks were to take place in the first half of 1999, but were derailed due to the Kargil conflict. It is after five years that the process has been put back on track. When asked if the recent idea of a common nuclear doctrine between India, China and Pakistan, would be on the agenda, the officials replied in the negative. "Our discussions will be confined to India-Pakistan matters," they said.

Asked if Pakistan would restate its position on a strategic restraint regime, a proposal first made in October 1998 at the level of Foreign Secretaries, the officials said that one would have to wait for the actual talks to begin.

The officials also referred to the India-Pakistan agreements on non-attack on each other's nuclear installations and giving advance information on the test-firing of ballistic missiles, an element contained in the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed between the two countries in Lahore in 1999, which speaks of expert-level talks on nuclear CBMs.

While recognising the "nuclear dimension" of the security environment, the 1999 Lahore Declaration committed the two countries to taking immediate steps for reducing the risk of accidental or unauthorised use of nuclear weapons and discuss concepts and doctrines with a view to elaborating measures for confidence building in the nuclear and conventional fields, aimed at prevention of conflict.

In January 2003, the Government of India, while setting up a Nuclear Command Authority, had announced that New Delhi would limit its capability to a credible minimum deterrent and the commitment to use nuclear weapons only in retaliation.

Also, India made it known that it would not use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear weapons' powers while against N-weapons' powers, its strategy remained one of no-first use. It was also stated at the time that "nuclear retaliation to a first strike will be massive and designed to inflict unacceptable damage".

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