ISLAMABAD: A former senior diplomat on Monday expressed the hope that Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government in India would not plunge South Asia into another nuclear crisis.

“We hope sanity prevails and the BJP acts responsibly,” said retired ambassador Munawar Bhatti.

He was speaking at the launch of a report documenting the proceedings of an international seminar on ‘Nuclear non-proliferation, arms control and disarmament: contemporary challenges and prospects’ organised by the Centre for Pakistan and Gulf Studies (CPGS) in collaboration with Konrad Adenauer Stiftung.

Mr Bhatti said Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s visit to New Delhi had kindled hopes about normalisation of relations with India.

Ex-diplomat hopes BJP govt will not plunge S.Asia into another nuclear crisis

However, he noted that events in the bilateral ties over the last couple of months weren’t very reassuring.

He said cancellation of foreign secretaries’ talks and skirmishes along the working boundary were a cause of concern.

He also pointed towards Shiv Sena’s anti-Pakistan protests demanding closure of Pakistan’s High Commission in New Delhi as another reason to worry.

The BJP manifesto had pledged to give up “no-first-use” policy on nuclear weapons. The move, if ever materialised, could spell a crisis for the region even though it would be symbolic.

The recommendations based on the presentations of the speakers at the seminar called for resumption of Pakistan-India talks on nuclear confidence building and risk reduction measures.

The recommendations noted that Pakistan’s offer of a strategic restraint regime in South Asia provided a useful framework for enhancing strategic stability in the region.

President CPGS Senator Sehar Kamran said as a nation we should not be apologetic about our hard-earned capability. She asked for a bold stance on the country’s nuclear programme.

She said an equitable and non-discriminatory international order was needed which could address the concerns of all countries.

One of the recommendations said: “The non-NPT nuclear powers, including Pakistan, should be accommodated within the mainstream global non-proliferation regime in a non-discriminatory and equitable manner.”

Former interior minister Senator Rehman Malik, who remained a member of the National Command Authority for five years, said if Pakistan could build nuclear weapons it also knew how to protect them.

He said security concerns about Pakistan’s nuclear programme were a result of enemy propaganda and hence baseless.

“We have been crippled by those listening to the fiction of our enemies,” he said and added that Pakistan’s capability to produce safe nuclear energy was proven.

Senator Malik regretted the world’s discriminatory attitude towards Pakistan’s nuclear programme.

Other recommendations stressed non-discrimination in the global nuclear regime and supported Pakistan’s case for inclusion in the multilateral export control regimes.

The recommendations also called for promotion of peaceful uses of nuclear energy on the basis of a criteria-based and non-discriminatory approach.

Published in Dawn, September 30th, 2014