Pak N-blasts ensured India wasn't singled out for int'l pressure: Krepon

Washington, May 10 : Former Indian Home Minister LK Advani had issued a veiled threat to Pakistan after the then BJP-led NDA government conducted nuclear tests in May 1998, to make sure that Pakistan would follow suit rejecting US offers and to prevent India from being singled out for international pressure, Michael Krepon, a nuclear expert, has said.

Krepon, the co-founder of the Stimson Centre, wrote this in the journal "Arms Control".

"When India finally decided to test, it was almost a foregone conclusion that Pakistan would also test. When New Delhi obliged on May 11 and 13, no inducements or penalties the United States and other capitals could identify were powerful enough to prevent Pakistan from following suit. Just to make sure that Pakistan would reject US offers and to prevent India from being singled out for international pressure, Advani issued a thinly veiled public threat to the effect that now that New Delhi possessed the bomb, its neighbour should watch its step in Kashmir. Pakistan tested its nuclear devices on May 28," the Daily Times quoted Krepon as saying in his article.

Krepon further writes that 10 years later, India and Pakistan still have not accepted any constraints on their strategic autonomy. Along with China, both states are engaged in strategic modernisation programmes of considerable breadth, building nuclear-tipped cruise missiles as well as ballistic missiles to be carried by their land, sea, and air forces, he writes further.

About India's and Pakistan's future Nuke plans, he writes that if India tests again, Pakistan is likely to do so as well. The nuclear enclaves in each county are highly respected at home and believe they have more work to do. This spells trouble not only for the CTBT, but also for initiating and successfully concluding fissile material cut-off negotiations in Geneva, says Krepon in his article.

ANI