Pakistan raises prospect of nuclear disarmament

Pakistan raised the stakes in nascent peace overtures with India today, saying it would destroy its nuclear arsenal if its South Asian rival did the same.

It also hailed a “positive” response to its invitation for the Indian premier to visit Pakistan to seek an answer to disputes that last year brought the countries to the brink of their fourth war in half a century.

“As far as Pakistan is concerned, if India is ready to denuclearise, we would be happy to denuclearise,”, said Foreign Ministry spokesman Aziz Ahmed Khan in Islamabad. “But it will have to be mutual.”

There was no immediate response from New Delhi.

Pakistan insists it developed nuclear weapons in response to the perceived threat from India, and has called for a nuclear-free zone in South Asia.

India has rejected the idea, saying its nuclear programme is not driven by Pakistan alone – an apparent reference to China, the only other country India has gone to war against.

That was back in 1962, and India has recently tried to improve relations with China. But there have been no indications so far from New Delhi that warmer ties with Beijing or the thaw with Islamabad could persuade it to consider disarming.

Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee launched a new peace initiative toward Pakistan last month with a speech in Kashmir, the divided Himalayan region that is at the heart of the countries’ mutual enmity.

Then last week he again called for “decisive” talks. Pakistan responded by matching New Delhi’s reopening of diplomatic relations and inviting Vajpayee to Pakistan.

“We have received a response ... it is a positive response,” Khan said. “We hope that the process of talks will start very soon.”

Indian External Affairs Ministry spokesman Navtej Sarna said Vajpayee sent a letter to Pakistan’s Prime Minister Zafarullah Khan Jamali on Saturday saying “careful preparations had to be made on the ground before a meaningful and sustained dialogue” could take place.

Hindu India and Islamic Pakistan have gone to war three times since independence from Britain in 1947, two of them over mostly Muslim Kashmir, where guerillas are fighting a bloody war against Indian rule.

Both declared themselves nuclear powers after detonating atomic devices in 1998. Neither arsenal is open to inspections and it’s not known exactly what either country possesses.

Tension threatened to boil over again last year after India blamed Pakistan for an attack on its parliament in December 2001, sparking international alarm that they were heading for the world’s first war between nuclear powers.

No date has been set for new talks. But the diplomatic thaw has gathered pace ahead of a visit this week to the region by S Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage.

While Pakistani opposition groups have welcomed the prospect of talks, the Indian government faces stiff opposition from Hindu nationalists, some of them in the national government.

“There is no use talking to Pakistan when they continue to aid infiltration and insurgency,” Subash Desai, general secretary of Shiv Sena, a party in Vajpayee’s coalition, said today.