NEW DELHI, March 12: The foreign ministers of India and Pakistan each appealed for their countries to be fully accepted as nuclear powers, six years after the neighbours conducted nuclear tests.

Indian Foreign Minister Yashwant Sinha said on Friday that New Delhi became a "reluctant nuclear power" because of the world's "imperfect non-proliferation order".

He rejected suggestions that the 1998 nuclear tests carried out by his just-installed JBP government were "purely a political act aimed at enhancing its status in the world by breaking into the exclusive nuclear club".

"In a world where weapons of mass destruction are still to be eliminated, nuclear weapons are sadly the ultimate guarantor of a nation's security," Sinha told a seminar in New Delhi.

Pakistani Foreign Minister Khurshid Kasuri told a separate seminar on Thursday in Islamabad that the world should recognise Pakistan, India - and Israel - as nuclear powers.

He called for changes in the international Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which restricts nuclear weapons to five states: Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States.-AFP