India, Pakistan Embroiled in Nuke Spat

January 8, 2003
By Harbaksh Singh Nanda

NEW DELHI, Jan. 8 (UPI) -- Arch rivals and neighbors India and Pakistan are once again embroiled in a bitter spat on the use of nuclear weapons.

The latest war of words comes less than a week after India set up a Nuclear Command Authority that placed the nuclear button in the hands of the prime minister.

India's outspoken Defense Minister George Fernandes said Tuesday Pakistan would be wiped out if India retaliated against any nuclear attack by Islamabad.

In an apparent reference to Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf's reported statement that an India-Pakistan war was averted after the United States conveyed to the Indian leadership Pakistan's resolve to wage a non-conventional war, Fernandes said there was no need to worry.

"The Pakistani leadership should not talk of using the bomb and should abandon the idea of committing suicide," Fernandes said. " ... If Pakistan uses the bomb, we will suffer a little but there will be no Pakistan left later."

The two nations, which conducted retaliatory nuclear tests on May 1998, are believed to have come close to a fourth war last year when they amassed a million troops along their common border. That was prompted by the December 2001 attack on India's Parliament, which New Delhi blamed on Pakistan-backed militants.

"I hate having to say this but Pakistan should know its strengths and vulnerability and stop making these stupid statements," Fernandes said at a business summit in the southern city of Hyderabad.

His statements were reported by the respected Hindu newspaper.

Pakistan Wednesday criticized Fernandes' statements, saying it would teach India an "unforgettable lesson" if it ever launched a nuclear attack.

"Pakistan is a reality and cannot be wiped out through nuclear weapons," Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed said. "We know how to defend ourselves, and respond to the nefarious designs of the enemy."

He warned of an "unforgettable lesson" if India used the nuclear option, the Press Trust of India reported.

He also said Pakistan won't be the first to use nuclear arms.

"We will not initiate nuclear war, and this is our policy," Ahmed said.

Meanwhile, Richard N. Haass, director of the Policy Planning Staff at the U.S. State Department, said India should not set preconditions for peace talks with Pakistan.

Speaking in Hyderabad, he said India's disinclination for dialogue with Pakistan as long as terrorism emanated from its territory was not the basis for a sound, long-term policy to deal with its neighbor. He said the United States would continue to urge Musharraf to permanently end infiltration in Kashmir but India should acknowledge "positive" developments such as Pakistan's measures against the al Qaida and the Taliban.

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