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India, Pakistan plan nuclear hot line India and Pakistan will establish a nuclear hot line to reduce the risk of war, and the longtime South Asian rivals Sunday reaffirmed their commitments to an atomic testing moratorium — steps forward in efforts to normalize relations.
Pakistan said it hopes the nuclear talks and other avenues of dialogue lead to a summit between Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf and India's new prime minister, Manmohan Singh.
"We are making preparations ... If they culminate in a summit, it will be a good thing," said Pakistani Foreign Ministry spokesman Masood Khan.
Reconciliation efforts launched between Pakistan and India under Singh's predecessor, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, are continuing under India's new government, Khan said. Vajpayee was ousted in April-May elections.
"When there was a political transition in India, there was some degree of uncertainty. That has been resolved. We are on track," Khan said.
In a joint statement at the conclusion of two days of talks in the Indian capital, officials said the dedicated secure hot line between the countries' foreign secretaries was intended to "prevent misunderstandings and reduce risks relevant to nuclear issues."
An existing hot line between directors-general of military operations in both countries also will be upgraded and secured, the statement said.
The countries, which have fought three wars since independence from Britain in 1947, also reaffirmed their moratorium on conducting further nuclear tests "unless, in exercise of national sovereignty, it decides that extraordinary events have jeopardized its supreme interests."
"We are moving ahead step by step. Whatever we agree to do, we must implement. That is the spirit," Khan said in New Delhi.
India and Pakistan carried out nuclear tests in May 1998, provoking military and economic sanctions by the United States and its allies. International fears of a nuclear confrontation heightened when the two countries fought in the Himalayas in 1999 and came close to war again in mid-2002 when India blamed Pakistan for a terrorist attack on its Parliament.
Reaffirming the moratorium will probably ease international concerns over the possibility of a nuclear conflict, said C. Raja Mohan, a professor of international relations at Jawaharlal University in New Delhi.
"This is the first signal that India-Pakistani engagement is moving forward," he said.
India and Pakistan also agreed to formalize an understanding to notify each other when they conduct missile tests. Both sides discussed a draft treaty prepared by India.
They also promised to continue talks toward implementing a 1999 agreement signed in Lahore, Pakistan, on reducing nuclear risks. The agreement was held up by tensions after the December 2001 attack on the Indian Parliament.
"The spirit right now in the nuclear realm is to transcend beyond the rhetoric and do something substantive and concrete," Khan said.
The next round of talks will be held between the foreign secretaries on June 27-28, in which they will take up the thorny issue of Kashmir, the disputed Himalayan province that both countries claim in its entirety and has been the cause of two wars.
Also, Indian External Affairs Minister Natwar Singh and Pakistani Foreign Minister Khursheed Kasuri will meet Monday on the sidelines of a regional conference in China.
India — which enjoys a substantial advantage in conventional weapons over Pakistan — says it will not be the first nation to use nuclear weapons. But Pakistan has not made a similar commitment. |
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