Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf said Monday that Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal deterred India from initiating a full-scale war during tensions over the last few months, according to a report distributed yesterday by a government news agency, the Associated Press reported (see GSN, June 17).

Musharraf told Pakistani scientists and engineers that Pakistan’s three tests of nuclear-capable missiles last month showed there is a strategic balance between India and Pakistan.

“We were compelled to show them in May 1998 that we were not bluffing, and in May 2002 again we were compelled to show that we do not bluff,” he said (Associated Press/Dallas Morning News, June 19).

“By testing with outstanding success the delivery systems of our strategic capability, these men validated the reliability, accuracy and the deterrence value of Pakistan’s premier surface-to-surface ballistic missile systems of the Hatf series, namely Ghauri, Ghaznavi and Abdali,” Musharraf said (see GSN, May 28).

India denounced Musharraf’s remarks.

“The international community should not ignore such continued manifestations of Pakistani irresponsibility, loose talk and undiluted hostility towards India and the continued concoction of doomsday theory to justify Pakistan’s use of nuclear blackmail,” Indian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Nirupama Rao said (Agence France-Presse/Dawn, June 19).

Indian Nominee Echoes Musharraf

Despite the official Indian response to Musharraf’s comments, however, the nominee for the Indian presidency said today that nuclear weapons helped deter each side.

“Nuclear deterrents on both sides have helped avert a war,” A.P.J. Abdul Kalam said.

India’s governing coalition and the main opposition party nominated Kalam yesterday to be India’s next president — a mostly ceremonial position, according to the Associated Press.  The national Parliament and state legislatures will vote to elect the president on July 15, and Kalam is expected to win (Associated Press/New York Times, June 19).

Kalam oversaw India’s 1998 nuclear tests and developed India’s nuclear-capable Agni and Prithvi missiles, according to the London Guardian (see GSN, May 16).

Kalam is also a Muslim with backing from the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, a Hindu revivalist party.  The BJP, which has come under criticism for its response to the killing of 2,000 Muslims earlier this year in Gujarat, has said that Kalam shows little interest in Islam.

“Kalam is a Muslim with a Hindu soul,” one BJP leader said (Luke Harding, London Guardian, June 18).

U.S. Intervention

Meanwhile, Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee said it was U.S. intervention that prevented a war in South Asia (see GSN, June 14).  According to the National Post, Monday’s Hindu-language Dainik Jagran newspaper reported that Vajpayee said India had been prepared to launch nuclear missiles at Pakistan during heightened tensions.

“If Pakistan had not accepted the demand to stop cross-border infiltration and the United States had not conveyed to us Pakistan’s guarantee to do so, then nothing could have stopped war,” Vajpayee said.

“India was prepared for an atomic war, but we were confident that our neighbor would not commit such an act of madness,” he added (Stewart Bell, National Post, June 18).

De-escalation Continues

As tensions between India and Pakistan have decreased, India has authorized military personnel to take routine leave and allowed Defense Secretary Yogendra Narain and Air Force chief S. Krishnaswamy to visit other countries, according to the Times of India.

Indian officials said, however, that the situation will not return to normal until India believes Pakistan has “permanently” ended militant infiltration into India’s side of the disputed Kashmir territory.  The officials are willing to wait until roughly September to determine whether Pakistan is truly ending infiltration, according to the Times.

“India will not accept any claim by Pakistan (that it has stopped infiltration) till the terrorists’ training camps are dismantled,” Vajpayee said Monday (Manoj Joshi, Times of India, June 19).

Meanwhile, Indian Defense Minister George Fernandes said today that ground sensors will be installed along the Indian-Pakistani border, although no formal talks with the United States on the subject have taken place.  U.S. officials had suggested installing sensors to monitor infiltration into Indian-controlled Kashmir (Siddharth Srivastava, Times of India, June 19).

For further information, see:

Stimson Center Background on Kashmir

Pakistani Government

Indian Government

Carnegie Endowment World Missile Chart

About Newswire  |  Contact National Journal  |  Re-Use Guidelines

HOME  |  CONTACT US  |  GET INVOLVED  |  SITE MAP

Back to top