Pakistan and India will have to go for an agreement on nuclear restraint for peace and economic stability, besides joining hands for co-operation in the civil nuclear power generation to address the most vital energy crisis, said Dr Shireen Mazari, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Strategic Technology Resources (STR) here on Thursday.
It is high time that both the countries should move forward by targeting the most sensitive and meaningful area of tension-reduction - that is adopting the security route to cooperation, she said while briefing the media on "the security route to cooperation".
She was of the view that joint nuclear power generation is centerpiece of the security route to co-operation, as both Pakistan and India are conventional energy deficient states. The two countries should use nuclear power for energy purpose to lead their people towards socio- economic stability, she added.
Timed to coincide with the visit of the Indian Foreign Secretary to Islamabad, the idea was to seek a new and more viable way to break the stalemate between Pakistan-India, which continue to stall peace process despite a growing recognition that peace and regional co-operation are in the long term interests of the people of the region, she further opined.
Dr Mazari went on saying that for effective and long-term peace and co-operation, Pakistan and India will have to move first in the sensitive security and contentious issues areas. The list of nuclear facilities that both countries exchange at the end of every calendar year should also be expanded now as both the countries have overt nuclear programmes.
Beyond the nuclear field, conventional force reductions, especially forces on the ground, which in India's case are deployed primarily along the border with Pakistan, should also be negotiated, she suggested.
She observed that there has to be some movement on the Kashmir issue and eventually some form of a plebiscite or referendum has to be offered to the Kashmiri people. On Kashmir there is some movement within Indian civil society and human rights organisations on re-examining the oppression being meted out by the Indian state on the Kashmiri populace.
There are also blueprints of solutions on Siachin and Sir Creek which require political will, especially on the part of India which reneged on the original Siachin agreement of 1989, she made it clear.
Dr Mazari argued that the prevalent nuclear deterrent between Pakistan and India has moved the two countries out of a zero sum environment towards a positive sum environment where both have everything to lose in case of nuclear war - whatever the cause of the outbreak-and, therefore should recognise a mutuality of interests instead of seeking to play a game of brinkmanship with dangerous doctrines like limited war and Cold Start.
She said that all of Pakistan's nuclear power plants are under IAEA safeguards, whereas Indian is slowly moving towards putting its reactors under safeguards, albeit very slowly. Both can decide to put their joint reactors under safeguards even though India's civilian reactors will not be under safeguards totally till 2014 and beyond. But Pakistan's civil reactors are already under IAEA safeguards and in principle India should also have no objections in putting the joint civil reactors under normal IAEA safeguards.
India is also moving (although at snail's pace) to concede to some IAEA safeguards for civilian reactors, there is nothing technically hindering Pakistan and India in moving towards joint nuclear power generation. It is all a matter of political will and given the energy needs of both these countries for the future, and limited conventional energy resources, the nuclear energy route is the most viable option- most economical and efficient, she maintained.
Therefore, a beginning should be made with restraint/limits on warheads and launchers, especially those that are Pakistan specific, she added. Interestingly, the US is seeking to alter the rules of the game in the nuclear proliferation field by seeking India's membership into the supplier cartels relating to WMD. Of course the US is seeking a country-specific exception for India in these cartels but eventually such moves will have to result in criteria-based exceptions or they will be regarded as Pakistan-specific which cannot be viable in the long-run, Mazari said.
Comments
Comments are closed.