PAKISTAN/INDIA: Pakistan raised the military stakes with rival India again after its military ruler issued a stark warning that he was prepared to use nuclear weapons in the event of war.
"If the pressure on Pakistan becomes too great then as a last resort, the [use of the] atom bomb is also possible," Gen Pervez Musharraf said in an interview in Germany's Der Spiegel magazine published yesterday. He also accused India of harbouring "superpower" ambitions. The general's unusually aggressive comments come at a time when the rival armies have been squared off against each other since December. The military build-up followed the suicide attack on India's parliament for which India blamed the Pakistani secret service. Fourteen people, including the five gunmen, died in the attack.
The combative remarks also followed Gen Musharraf's plans to hold a referendum early next month to extend his presidency for another five years. He seized power in a bloodless coup in October 1999.
India dismissed the Pakistani President's remarks as "irresponsible". India's policy of a no first use of nuclear weapons remains unchanged, a foreign ministry official in New Delhi said.
India believed its nuclear deterrence was credible and sufficient to avoid a nuclear exchange on the sub-continent.
Ever since both countries carried out tit-for-tat nuclear tests in 1998 - Pakistan conducted six to India's five - the spectre of nuclear war has loomed. menacingly over south Asia.
Islamabad, whose conventional forces are significantly smaller than its neighbours, has retained the option of using nuclear weapons first, while Delhi said it would use its arsenal for a second strike.