January 10, 2003	Friday	Ziqa’ad 6, 1423

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ISLAMABAD, Jan 9: Nuclear tensions between Pakistan and India seemed to be mounting once again on Thursday as New Delhi carried out another test of a nuclear-capable rocket that Islamabad called an act of warmongering.

India test-fired its short-range Agni missile in the eastern state of Orissa only a day after Pakistan inducted its own medium-range, nuclear-capable Ghauri ballistic missile in the army and follows an Indian minister’s threat that use of the nuclear option by Islamabad would be suicidal.

Both countries ended a year-long military standoff last month after they pulled back more than a million troops from their common border to peace-time locations but tensions between them have been rising and ebbing on other related issues like the latest demonstration of their missile prowess.

A foreign ministry spokesman said on Thursday’s Indian test of the surface-to-surface Agni missile, which has a range of 600 to 800kms, was not an unexpected development as “India’s nuclear and missile ambitions were well-known”.

He did not rule out a similar Pakistani response, but he said in a statement: “Pakistan conducts tests when our technical requirements so demand.”

Information and Media Development Minister, Sheikh Rashid Ahmed, called the Indian test a testimony of what he called New Delhi’s “mentality of warmongering”.

Talking to reporters in Rawalpindi, he advised Indian leaders to stop making threatening statements and instead enter into a dialogue with Pakistan to solve problems between the two countries, including the main dispute over Kashmir.

AMERICAN WORRIES: The latest war of words between the two nations and their missile demonstrations have coincided with a visit to India by a senior US official who has urged both sides to resume peace talks and warned them of disastrous consequences of a conflict between the two nuclear-capable powers.

“The ability of both Pakistanis and Indians to reap the benefits of the 21st century will depend to a large degree on their willingness to build a more normal relationship with one another,” US State Department envoy Richard Haass said in a speech in the Indian city of Hyderabad.

“In the absence of the most basic contacts and the most minimal lines of communication, tension between India and Pakistan constantly risks sparking a broader conflict with potentially cataclysmic consequences — for India, for Pakistan, for the region, and, if I might say, for the United States,” he said.

But diplomatic sources said no major US peace move in the subcontinent was expected in the near future while a possible war against Iraq remained Washington’s main foreign policy concern at the time.

TALKS SHUNNED: Ties between the two sides touched a new low as Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee used his repeated charge of Pakistan’s support to the so-called “cross-border terrorism” in Kashmir to refuse to attend the annual summit of the seven-nation South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation in Islamabad this month, forcing an indefinite postponement of the conference.

An occasion was thus lost where Vajpayee and the Prime Minister Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali could have talked on bilateral problems on the sidelines.

Peace talks between the two sides have remained deadlocked since the failed 2001 summit between President Gen Pervez Musharraf and Vajpayee in the Indian city of Agra.

A nuclear controversy was stoked when some news reports interpreted a recent speech by President Musharraf as an implied threat of a possible use of nuclear weapons if India had attacked Pakistan during the military standoff.

But New Delhi seems to be unconvinced by President Musharraf’s denial of the reports and explanation that his talk of unconventional means of war was only a reference to possible help from Kashmiri guerrillas or a large number of retired soldiers in Azad Kashmir.

“We will suffer a little but there will be no Pakistan when we respond (with nuclear weapons),” Indian Defence Minister George Fernandes said in a speech on Tuesday — that was denounced by Islamabad with equal vehemence.

While formally receiving the Ghauri for induction in the Pakistan Army in Rawalpindi on Wednesday, President Musharraf was quoted as reiterating Pakistan’s position that the “sole purpose” of its development of nuclear weapons was “deterrence of aggression and defence of our sovereignty”.

But a military statement about the ceremony did not explain which of the two versions of the Ghauri — which can carry nuclear warheads and hit targets deep inside India — was handed over to the army on Wednesday.

The Ghauri I has range of 1,500kms (937 miles) while the more advanced Ghauri II can hit targets up to 2,300kms (1,437 miles).