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Strategies & Market Trends : India Coffee House -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Mohan Marette who wrote (1108)	5/29/1998 9:05:00 PM
From: Rational	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 12475

TOI (5/29/98) Pakistan blasts no knee-jerk reaction to Indian tests: PM Warns Islamabad to stay off Kashmir; for talks with China on border issue The Times of India News Service NEW DELHI: Pakistan gave a ''loud and clear answer'' on Thursday to the critics of India's prior nuclear explosion, Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee said in his reply on Friday evening to the Parliament debate on the Pokhran blasts. In separate and similar replies to both Houses of Parliament, he emphasised that India had exercised its nuclear option purely for defence, as a deterrent to potential aggressors, in a situation where neighbours were secretly developing (and collaborating on) their nuclear options. India was willing to negotiate a no-first-use pact with Pakistan and also discuss any other matter, the Prime Minister said. As for China, Mr Vajpayee said, ''our two nations are linked by history and geography and my government is committed to the 1954 Panchsheel understanding.'' ''But China must understand that some concerns of ours must be addressed - on territorial integrity and our security. Indians must have the assurance that peace with China assures stability, with these concerns,'' Mr Vajpayee added. The negotiations on national boundaries ''can and should progress,'' he stressed. Outlining the facts on the Sino- Pak collaboration vis-a-vis military matters, including nuclear ones, Mr Vajpayee said China had to understand the consequences of doing so. ''Pakistan remains unreconciled, it appears, to having good relations with India,'' he added. ''Given this attitude and the history of what they have done with weapons supplied to them, any help given to them (Pakistan) in these matters directly affects our security. We expect China to pay attention to this,'' the Prime Minister said. As for Pakistan, Mr Vajpayee did some plain-speaking. For all its and the world's protestations, he noted, Thursday's blasts showed they had been working on a nuclear option for years. The official announcement by Pakistan, the Prime minister said, was smothered in strident anti-India rhetoric; it was, by official admission, an India-specific weapon. Every nation was entitled to develop a nuclear option; Pakistan's reasons for doing so were instructive. ''I want to tell Pakistanis one thing,'' said Mr Vajpayee. ''Take out from your mind this notion that we want to destroy you. You and we are battling the same basic poverty and development problems... prosper, with our blessings. But be clear on one thing. Just abandon this idea of taking Jammu and Kashmir with weapons... I'm stressing the word weapons. If you want to talk about it, no problem... we're ready. If you think a solution won't be possible, we can put that aside and concentrate on other issues which can be resolved. But no more aggression, no third-party involvement. We aren't going to allow it.'' ''I can assure the nation, it has nothing to worry about the Pak blasts,'' Mr Vajpayee said. ''We've been monitoring their clandestine nuclear programme for years... we know all they've been up to and what they were doing.'' The Prime Minister called for a sober mind from all parties, noting their commonly-expressed resolve to battle external sanctions. Squelch juvenile thoughts of power and retaliation, he said, disapproving of the recent use of force by his party's coalition partner cadre in Maharashtra to ensure a visiting Pakistani singer couldn't perform in public. ''Completely wrong,'' he said. ''And so, too, these reports of Coca Cola bottles being broken. We're such a big nation, a strong nation... behave as one, with maturity. We can take all these pinpricks and more in our stride.''