India/Pakistan: There will be no war

Despite the hype surrounding the tense situation in Kashmir and the increasing hysteria in the rhetoric of the leaders on both sides, it is clear that there will not be a military crisis between India and Pakistan, much less a nuclear exchange.

Indian Defence Minister George Fernandes stated in Hong Kong on Monday that there will not be a nuclear exchange between India and Pakistan: “I do not agree with the idea that India and Pakistan would be so careless as to forget what nuclear weapons can do”, he declared in an interview with the Herald Tribune.

He added that the leaders of south-east Asian countries were fully aware of the consequences of deployment of nuclear weapons and that the leaders of all countries in the region were responsible people. “If the western nations and China know how to control their nuclear capacities, then so do India and Pakistan”, he said.

He stated that India would never be the first nation to deploy such weapons, and said that his country considers such weapons only in a dissuasive capacity.

Pakistani President General Pervez Musharraf has also made declarations recently defusing the tension and denying that Pakistan would ever use such weapons.

Timothy BANCROFT-HINCHEY PRAVDA.Ru