Many may not appreciate it, but will understand Pakistan's stand that it had to go nuclear when India decided to take the lead. There is also some validity in the argument by Pakistan army chief general Jehangir Karamat that Islamabad had to re-establish the strategic balance in the region. ...

... Both Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee and Nawaz Sharif ... are mixing the two different issues, the bomb and Kashmir. At a meeting where he defended  India's explosion, Vajpayee said that the entire Jammu and Kashmir was an integral part of India. Nawaz Sharif, while announcing to his nation that Pakistan had conducted five nuclear tests, said that the dialogue between India and Pakistan should include the core issue of Kashmir.

None can make a valid case that the Kashmir problem should remain unresolved. But at present when the two countries are almost on the verge of nuclear war, all attention has to be concentrated on how to defuse the situation. The mood in New Delhi and Islamabad is so foul that a wrong step, or a misunderstanding can blow up everything to smithereens ... The people in the two countries are sitting on a precipice. They have to retrieved first.

Therefore, both India and Pakistan must immediately come to an understanding on how to avert the collision. Hot lines function between the two prime ministers and the two army chiefs. They must be used if there is any unidentified object crossing the border from either side. A clear command and control structure should be working on both sides ... Casual and careless as New Delhi and Islamabad are, one hopes that there is no ambiguity or slackness on this issue.

However, rickety the command and control on the Indian side, it is very definitely in political hands. One hopes that the same is true in Pakistan ...

Of course, this is all right as far as it goes. But what about deception, or terrorism where nuclear materials are stolen and then reassembled in some distant place. Who will bear the responsibility ....

The inevitable conclusion in this situation where there is already so much mistrust is that the two sides must sign the NPT and CTBT. Both treaties provide for international inspection and verification procedures by experts whose bonafides are not and will not be questioned. In such ways realistic confidence building measures can be put in place so that the dangers of an accidental nuclear exchange are substantially reduced Till such agreements are negotiated, Vajpayee's offer of no-first use can straightway ward off nuclear holocaust ... Both India and Pakistan are now nuclear weapons states. The five have to accept them as equals.

France President Jacques Chirac ... has suggested  that seven or eight powers with nuclear capability, including India and Pakistan, should meet among themselves to discuss how to amend the relevant international treaties to restrict further proliferation. That way neither New Delhi or Islamabad will feel imposed upon or humiliated. There can be no question of discrimination.

Once the immediate fears of nuclear confrontation are allayed, Kashmir should be taken up because this is not an issue that can be solved in a jiffy ... Unfortunately, New Delhi has focused international attention on the question. Were it to start negotiations directly with Islamabad, it would still be possible to keep out others who have their own axe to grind.

... Both can pick up the thread where it was broken ... Since (Kashmir) is one question on which Pakistan feels strongly, there is no reason why a separate working group should not discuss the problem in depth.

.. It is too late in the day to argue that Kashmir may be construed as a dispute. The Simla Agreement has already made it ... one of the outstanding problems ...Once you agree to talk on Kashmir for 'a final settlement', it is no use beating about the bush. Now the situation after the bomb is so serious that there should be no effort to register a point on the use of words.

... The European example of economic and political integration has been lost on the sub-continent. But that is like putting our heads in the sand. If we want to move forward and deal with the rest of the world on something approaching an equal basis, conciliation between the two countries is a most ... Nowhere in the globe are so many poor as ... in the sub-continent. And between them, the two countries continue to spend 250 billion on arms.                                                                                      (Source: The Nation and the World, 1 July, 1998)