ISLAMABAD: Pakistan welcomed India’s offer for a dialogue with it on promoting nonproliferation of nuclear weapons in the subcontinent.
Responding to questions, a foreign office spokesman said the Pakistani government had taken note of the observations on the issue made by Indian Prime Minister Vishwanath Pratap Singh and “we welcome a dialogue with India.”
In an interview published in the dailies here, Singh had called for all out efforts to avoid a nuclear arms race in the subcontinent and had not ruled out a dialogue with Pakistan on the issue.
The spokesman pointed out that as far as Pakistan was concerned it,
“neither has nor intends to manufacture nuclear weapons,” hence, it was not a party to any nuclear arms race, he pointed out.
India, the spokesman said, had not so far not responded to any of the seven constructive proposals on encouraging nuclear nonproliferation in the region which had been presented to it by Pakistan on different occasions.
These included creation of a nuclear weapon free zone in South Asia, simultaneous signing of nuclear nonproliferation treaty and both countries agreeing to a nuclear test ban.
He said Pakistan was prepared to consider an equitable and nondiscriminatory proposals to keep the region free of nuclear weapons.
During the two visits of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi to Islamabad last year, these proposals had not specifically figured in his discussions with Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, he said.
He pointed out that while Pakistan favored a regional approach to tackle the issue in view of the existing security perceptions, India had insisted on taking a global view.
He noted that both India and Pakistan had signed an agreement on front attack on each other’s nuclear installations. This has been described by Pakistani President Ghulam Ishaq Khan in his recent address to parliament as an “important achievement” of the Pakistan government.
Article extracted from this publication >> December 15, 1989
