June 4, 2002	Tuesday	Rabi-ul-Awwal 22,1423

Please Visit our Sponsor (Ads open in separate window)

NEW DELHI, June 3: India said on Monday that it was confident that neither New Delhi nor Islamabad would use nuclear weapons to attack each other even as China’s official news agency expressed doubts about the United States’ sincerity in playing a fair-minded mediator on the question of Kashmir that has soured relations between the South Asian rivals.

“The government makes it clear that India does not believe in the use of nuclear weapons. Neither does it visualise that it will be used by any other country,” an Indian defence ministry statement said in New Delhi.

The Press Trust of India (PTI) said the statement was made in response to “media reports about the possible use of nuclear weapons in the context of current India-Pakistan stand-off.”

The news agency, in a separate dispatch from Beijing said Chinese President Jiang Zemin would meet President Pervez Musharraf and Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee on Tuesday on the sidelines of an Asian security meeting in Almaty.

PTI separately quoted China’s official Xinhua news agency as blasting the United States for lacking in sincerity in dealing with the dangerous nuclear stand-off between India and Pakistan.

Saying that Jiang would urge “utmost restraint” between the two nuclear-armed foes, the PTI quoted a Chinese foreign ministry spokesman as saying: “The relaxation of the tension between India and Pakistan would be in the interests of both countries in the first place.”

The PTI also quoted Chinese Defence Minister Chi Haotian as urging both India and Pakistan to desist from a military conflict and not to threaten each other with nuclear weapons.

Ahead of the visit to India and Pakistan by US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, China’s official media has accused Washington of showing no genuine desire to resolve the Kashmir issue, PTI said in a dispatch from Beijing.

“Bush administration’s aggressive diplomatic posture is more based on self-interests than a genuine intention to help India and Pakistan settle their prolonged disputes over Kashmir,” Xinhua said commenting on US diplomatic moves to defuse the military stand-off between India and Pakistan.

Quoting analysts, it said that the Bush administration’s newly-found urgency in diplomacy was largely based on the judgment that crucial US interests had been under threat.

It noted that Washington had clearly not taken the tensions very seriously when it went on with a 10-day joint military manoeuvre with India from May 16-26 and scheduled Armitage’s departure for South Asia on as late as June 4.

Chinese Foreign Minister Tang Jiaxuan, who had a telephonic talk with US Secretary of State Colin Powell on May 27, had indicated that the international community should encourage direct dialogue between India and Pakistan in a more balanced and fair manner, which is the most effective way to lead the South Asia towards peace and stability.

Meanwhile, Indian Defence Minister George Fernandes has dismissed fears of a nuclear war between India and Pakistan, saying neither country would be “imprudent” enough to use the weapons.

“I don’t agree with the idea that India and Pakistan are so imprudent and excitable that they’ll forget what nuclear weapons can do,” Fernandes said in an interview to the International Herald Tribune, published on Monday.

“I think it should be accepted that in South Asia there are responsible leaders. They may be belligerent and not fulfil their promises. But on nuclear matters, the subcontinent is alive to the implications.”

“If the western powers and China know how to keep their nuclear capabilities under control, the same holds good for India and Pakistan,” he said.

Fernandes recalled India’s pledge never to be the first to use nuclear weapons. “We look at our nuclear weapons purely as a deterrent,” he said.

“Pakistan’s President Gen Pervez Musharraf did say recently, in trying to raise the stakes, that he could use his nuclear weapons if India attacked.

“I made the point at the time that no man in his senses would ever mean this. I also said in response to his saber-ratting that if he should finally take that kind of step, perhaps out of desperation, he should realise that India can survive a nuclear attack, but Pakistan cannot,” Fernandes said.

The defence minister went on to note that in an interview with CNN Gen Musharraf ruled out the use of nuclear weapons.

Asked how close India and Pakistan are to war, Fernandes said: “For over five months, we have been in an eyeball-to-eyeball situation on our common border. There must be half a million troops on either side. But in this period there has been no major military incident.”

Asked whether another terrorist attack by infiltrators could spark a conflict, Fernandes said: “How we respond depends on the circumstances of the particular situation.

“The fact that we have deployed our troops in such large numbers shows that we are serious about protecting our borders and the lives and property of our people,” he said.

Fernandes also said India had evidence that thousands of Al Qaeda militants were in Azad Kashmir. “Our electronic surveillance and human intelligence indicates that there are between 2,000 and 3,000 Al Qaeda terrorists in Pakistan-administered Kashmir waiting for an opportunity to move into Kashmir,” he said.

“Now that Afghanistan is not open to them they have to find other pastures. It’s a very serious issue. “We have been trying to make this point to the United States,” he said. “They need to look into this; they can’t just overlook it.”