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Indian, Pakistani Nuclear Experts to Meet Next Month; India Said to Possess “Mini-Nukes”
Nuclear experts from India and Pakistan are scheduled to meet next month for talks aimed at strengthening confidence in the relationship between the two nuclear-powered rivals, according to the South China Morning Post (see GSN, April 22). The May 25-26 meetings were announced one day before a German newspaper reported yesterday that India has successfully developed low-yield nuclear weapons for battlefield use, the Morning Post said. Citing the Berliner Zeitung, the report quotes diplomatic sources as saying that India has approached the United States, which lifted its own ban on researching low-yield nuclear weapons last year, for approval in testing the weapon off its eastern seaboard, possibly on an uninhabited island in the Bay of Bengal. The diplomats said there has not yet been a response from Washington on the request. A “boutique bomb” would release a nuclear blast of less than one kiloton. Such “usable” weapons reduce the deterrent against nuclear war, critics said. “They are dangerous because these are ‘usable’ nuclear weapons, and the moment one side uses it the other side will feel justified in using whatever bombs it has in its nuclear arsenal,” said Achin Vanaik, co-author of South Asia on a Short Fuse (Maseeh Rahman, South China Morning Post, April 23).
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