WASHINGTON (PTI): The United States has urged India and Pakistan to establish “direct high-level dialogue to address and resolve the issues dividing them, including Kashmir as well as nuclear and missile proliferation,”
The U.S. role, the White House “said in are port to Congress, is that of “a catalyst seeking to promote a ‘Serious dialogue between the two countries and with others.”
The report is on “progress to Wards regional nonproliferation is South Asia” and is mandated by the Congress. The state department prepares these reports, the White Hotise makes any changes sends it to Congress on behalf of the president.
The nine page report says that as both Islamabad and New Delhi have vital domestic considerations, “dealing successfully with nuclear and missile proliferation in south Asia will require that the US. and others take into account both Indian and Pakistani domestic concerns and regional security and regional security threat perceptions, including those extending beyond the two countries themselves.
“It cannot be addressed simply as a nonproliferation issue pursued on the basis of external pressure by the United States alone,”
“We believe both India and Pakistan could assemble a number of nuclear weapons in a relatively short time frame and both have combat aircraft that could be modified to deliver them in a crisis” the report says.
“Both India and Pakistan are developing or seeking to acquire ballistic missiles capable of stinking major population centers in the other country, potentially with nuclear or chemical weapons.”
The report says “while India’s Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) and missile programs initially were driven by security concerns about China, Pakistan’s WMD related programs now add those concerns, Some Indians believe that nuclear and ballistic missile capabilities have different value against China, as well as Pakistan.
“Pakistan’s WMD and missile programs appear to be driven primarily by specific security concerns vis-a-vis India. But it also seeks equality of status and rights with India, although it has no aspirations of global equality of Status with nuclear weapons States.”
“Concern remain about whether China has terminated its links with Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program and about its missile export policies,” it says.
Article extracted from this publication >> May 14, 1993
