Pakistan, India to exchange nuclear data

ISLAMABAD - Pakistan and India will exchange lists of nuclear installations and facilities on Sunday, officials said Saturday.

The annual exchange takes place on January 1 every year under an agreement signed in 1988 when they undertook not to attack each other's nuclear facilities.

The "Agreement on the Prohibition of Attack against Nuclear Installations and Facilities" came into force in January 1991.

The lists will be handed over to the Pakistani and Indian high commissions in Islamabad and New Delhi.

The first exchange took place on January 1, 1992 and the 2012 exchange will be the 21st consecutive list exchange between the two countries.

Pakistan and India conducted tit-for-tat nuclear tests in 1998. Both countries are de facto nuclear weapon powers.

India conducted its first nuclear test in 1974, followed by five more in 1998. Pakistan conducted six nuclear tests in 1998.

Neither India nor Pakistan is a signatory to the Nuclear Non- Proliferation Treaty (NPT). India considers the NPT discriminatory while Pakistan has indicated that it won't join the international agreement until its neighbor does so.

In 2004 they launched a peace process, which was stalled following the Mumbai terror attacks in 2008, with New Delhi pressuring Islamabad to do more to punish those responsible for the carnage and crack down on anti-India groups.

Senior Pakistani and Indian officials concluded two-day talks on conventional and nuclear Confidence-Building Measures (CBMs) in Islamabad on December 27, 2011.

This was the first meeting of the Joint Working Group on nuclear and conventional CBMs in over four year, which were held in "cordial and constructive atmosphere".

The two sides agreed to recommend to their Foreign Secretaries to extend the validity of the Agreement on Reducing the Risk from Accidents Relating to Nuclear Weapons for another five years.

The expert groups last met in New Delhi in October 2007.

India and Pakistan resumed their dialogue process in February 2011 after over two years of suspension in the wake of the 2008 Mumbai attacks allegedly carried out by Pakistan-based militants.