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India-Pakistan

Pakistan: Weâll Destroy Nukes if India Does

2003-05-05

Pakistan is ready to get rid of its nuclear arsenal if uneasy neighbor India also does, a Foreign Ministry spokesman said Monday. ``As far as Pakistan is concerned, if India is ready to denuclearize, we would be happy to denuclearize,'' Aziz Ahmed Khan said. ``But it will have to be mutual.''
"You first!"
Pakistan and India declared themselves nuclear powers after detonating atomic devises in 1998. Neither arsenal is open to inspections and it's not known exactly what either Pakistan or India possesses. Pakistan says it developed its nuclear arsenal in response to the perceived threat from India. ``Our position has been that we were forced into the situation because of Indian nuclear ambitions,'' he said.
"It's your fault we are nuke armed lunatics!"

Estimates I've seen put the Pak numbers at 50, India's at 35. But I have no idea how reliable those numbers are...

The two South Asian neighbors have fought three wars since the end of British rule of the subcontinent in 1947. Two of those wars have been over the disputed Kashmir region. The international community has been pressing the two neighbors to hold peace talks to end their relentless bickering fearing it could escalate into a nuclear confrontation.
The Islamic street will never let the Paks deal away their nukes, at least not until another Islamic country has them.

There's also the fact that Pak has lost three out of three of those wars and has an almost idolatrous fixation on their "Islamic nukes." I don't see anything here other than wind and posing.

Posted by:Steve

#3 Actually India for quite awhile had always been a regional counterweight to China's ambitions. If India were to give up its nukes, China would still have theirs and you can be guaranteed a lot more of those are aimed at them than at us in the U.S. Unfortunately that doesn't mean I regard anyone in that region as relatively responsible folks in regards to having nuclear capability. Sorry guys but in my view I'd rather India, Pakistan AND China have ZERO nukes (and just as importantly North Korea but thats another category)

Posted by: Valentine 2003-05-06 00:40:58

#2 BS or not, encourage this. ANYWAY we can get an Islamic nation to destroy WMD is good. I'm not comfortable with India's nuclear status anyway. Their longstanding animosity toward Pak is just ripe for an ultranationalist Indian gov't to decide just how badly India wants Kashmir. That inevitible war needs to stay conventional.
Our counterbalance to China, in that region, is Taiwan (read us).

Posted by: Scott 2003-05-05 15:04:05

#1 This is indeed bullshit. Pakland had nukes long before India did. Although India did carry out nuclear tests in the early 1970s they never actually kept a supply of nukes. After Pakistan started supporting the insurgency in the early 1990s, India threatened to retaliate and there was a 'nuclear threat' from Pakistan. This is why India decided to carry out the tests in 1998. There is a lot of disinformation that pakistan carried out their nuclear tests in resonse to India's when if fact its the other way round.

Besides this, India's main perceived nuclear threat is China and not Pakland. India won't give up its nukes unless there is a complete global disarmament, in other words it will never happen.

Posted by: rg117 2003-05-05 09:55:59

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