India yesterday said that Pakistan's multiple nuclear test had vindicated its decision to conduct its own nuclear explosions two weeks ago.
The Prime Minister, Mr Atal Bihari Vajpayee, told Parliament that India needed a nuclear deterrent because Pakistan had now proved it had been pursuing a secret nuclear weapons programme. He called on all parties to present a "unified front" in the face of what he termed the new regional "challenge".
Pakistan's nuclear detonations, Mr Vajpayee said, had led to a new security situation in the region, even as opposition MPs accused the Hindu nationalist-led coalition government of setting off a regional nuclear arms race.
Mr Vajpayee had earlier justified India's decision to "weaponise" its nuclear option on the grounds that India was surrounded by the nuclear-capable China and Pakistan, with both of whom it had fought wars since independence 51 years ago.
India has fought three wars with Pakistan and one with China over territorial disputes that remain unresolved. Mr Vajpayee had also accused China of helping Pakistan become a "covert" nuclear power by supplying it with nuclear and missile technology.
Tension between India and Pakistan has been high ever since the Indian tests on May 11th and 13th. Pakistan yesterday accused India of planning an attack on its nuclear facilities, an accusation dismissed by officials in Delhi as "absurd". Senior Indian ministers had accused Pakistan this week of waging a "proxy war" against India in the disputed northern state of Kashmir and said it would adopt a "pro-active" policy towards its neighbour.
India accuses Pakistan of backing an armed Muslim secessionist campaign in Kashmir since 1989, a campaign in which more than 20,000 people have died. Pakistan denies the charge. Pakistan's nuclear tests, meanwhile, will increase diplomatic and economic pressure on both neighbours to make arms control agreements and reduce tensions in an area that could well become one of the world's most dangerous flashpoints. It will also bring both neighbours into conflict not only with each other but with the five established nuclear-armed powers - Russia, China, Britain, France and the United States.
Officials, meanwhile, said Pakistan's nuclear tests would also call China's assistance into question. The CIA revealed that in 1985 Pakistan "cold-tested" a nuclear device at China's desert testing range at Lop Nor. A cold test is when everything but detonation takes place. Pakistan acknowledged it only four years later in 1989, when its military junta admitted possessing nuclear capability to counter India's.
India is to blame for starting "a nuclear race in the sub-continent", the Association of Pakistanis (Ireland) said in a statement yesterday, as "India tipped the balance of power in the area two weeks ago". It appealed to the two governments not to carry out any further tests.
