ISLAMABAD, 2 January 2003 — Bitter nuclear rivals Pakistan and India yesterday exchanged detailed information about each other’s nuclear facilities, which they were obliged to do under a 12-year-old agreement, officials said.
"We have handed over lists of our nuclear installations to an Indian official in Islamabad while India did the same in New Delhi," Kamran Niaz, a senior official at Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry, told the Associated Press.
He said the lists included the exact location of their respective nuclear installations.
Pakistan and India, which conducted tit-for-tat nuclear weapons tests in 1998, went to the brink of war in May last year, in the midst of a 10-month deployment of a million troops on their common border that followed a deadly Dec. 2001 attack on the Indian Parliament. New Delhi blamed the attack on Pakistan-based militants fighting Indian rule in Kashmir.
Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf revealed Monday he had warned Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee that Pakistan was prepared to step beyond conventional warfare if it had to defend its territory. He told a military audience India "should not expect a conventional war from Pakistan" if New Delhi sent troops into its territory. A Musharraf aide quickly played down the remarks, stressing that the president did not mention nuclear or biological weapons. (Agencies)
