ISLAMABAD/NEW DELHI, 2 June — Declaring the nuclear option unthinkable, Pakistan’s President Pervez Musharraf yesterday sought to calm escalating fears that a military standoff with India could lead to atomic war. As the United Nations prepared to evacuate families of its staff from Pakistan, Musharraf said in a television interview, “I don’t think either side is that irresponsible to go to that limit”.
“I would even go to the extent of saying one shouldn’t even be discussing these things, because any sane individual cannot even think of going into this unconventional war, whatever the pressures,” he told CNN. The United States, Britain and other Western nations have flown home diplomats and their families from India and Pakistan and urged tens of thousands of their citizens to leave. A million troops are facing each other across the India-Pakistan border, where armies have kept up a steady exchange of mortar and machine-gun fire that has left dozens dead and displaced thousands of villagers over the past fortnight.
Musharraf also said Pakistan had moved some of its troops hunting fleeing Al-Qaeda and Taleban militants on the Afghan border toward the Indian border and could move all of them if the military standoff with India worsened.
A number of Western nations urged their citizens to leave the region on Friday, fearing an escalation that could lead to nuclear war. The United Nations said yesterday it was preparing to evacuate families of its expatriate staff from Pakistan.
“We haven’t moved the entire force,” Musharraf said of the thousands of Pakistani troops deployed along the western border with Afghanistan to help the US-led coalition hunt Taleban and Al-Qaeda fugitives after the collapse of the Taleban government in Afghanistan in December. But he added: “If the situation worsens (on the Indian border), yes we have plans to move all from the western border (with India).”
India has said it will not be the first to strike with nuclear weapons. Musharraf said he would go beyond that. “We’ve called for a no-war pact (with India), that there shouldn’t be any war,” he said. “We’ve called for denuclearization of South Asia, so we’ve called for a reduction of forces.”
Musharraf told the cable network Pakistan “will fight militancy in any form”, a key demand by India and world leaders trying to defuse the crisis. India wants to see words matched with deeds. He said he had risked personal threats by ordering a crackdown against terrorism and religious extremism.
“There have been threats from all directions,” he said, adding that for that reason arrangements for his personal security had been tightened. But he added that he believed in destiny and was not afraid for his life.
