Pakistan threatens to teach India 'a lesson'

India was today told it would be taught an “unforgettable lesson” if it ever launched a nuclear attack on Pakistan.

But despite the tough words, Islamabad insisted it had no plans or desire for a conflict between the two nuclear-armed neighbours.

Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed’s comments came in response to a claim by India’s defence minister that New Delhi could absorb a nuclear hit and annihilate Pakistan in return.

“Pakistan is a reality and cannot be wiped out through nuclear weapons. We know how to defend ourselves, and respond to the nefarious designs of the enemy,” Ahmed said.

“India will be taught an unforgettable lesson if they ever launch a nuclear attack on Pakistan,” he added. “Our response will be a historic lesson for them if they used the nuclear option.”

Tensions between Pakistan and India rose sharply last year after an attack on India’s parliament in December 2001. New Delhi blamed the assault on Pakistan-based militants and Pakistan’s spy service.

Both countries sent hundreds of thousands of troops to their border before the situation improved amid intense international diplomatic pressure.

Although they now say they are pulling back, the countries have continued to launch verbal attacks on each other.

Indian Defence Minister George Fernandes yesterday criticised Pakistan for its harsh rhetoric, and issued a chilling prediction of his own on how a nuclear war would turn out.

“We can take a bomb or two or more ... but when we respond there will be no Pakistan,” Fernandes told the Press Trust of India news agency.

India and Pakistan have fought three wars, including two over the disputed Himalayan province of Kashmir, since winning independence from Britain in 1947. They conducted tit-for-tat nuclear tests in 1998.

They have signed an agreement that bars them from attacking each other’s nuclear facilities, and each has pledged they would not be the first to start a nuclear exchange – a promise reiterated by Ahmed.

“We will not initiate nuclear war, and this is our policy,” Ahmed said. “We want good relations with them ... we want to live peacefully with India, but the problem is that they keep making irresponsible and hostile statements.”

The current exchange of hostile words began last month when Pakistani President General Pervez Musharraf said he had personally warned India during last year’s hostilities to “not expect a conventional war from Pakistan” – an apparent reference to a nuclear confrontation.

His spokesman quickly denied that the president was referring to nuclear weapons, and Musharraf said later that he had meant that 150,000 retired Pakistani military personnel living in Kashmir would have risen up against any Indian aggression.