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CNN Live Saturday

Pakistan Calls for "No War" Pact

Aired June 01, 2002 - 12:02   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
FREDRICKA WHITFIED, CNN ANCHOR: The Pakistani leader says an all-out nuclear war between his country and India is unthinkable. How is India's government reacting to Musharaff's position? CNN New Delhi bureau chief Satinder Bindra is covering that side of the story.

Pakistan says it doesn't want a war. What does India say, Satinder?

SATINDER BINDRA, CNN NEW DELHI BUREAU CHIEF: So far, Fredricka, there has been no direct response from the Indian government to the speech, but all of today we've noticed one thing. The senior Indian leadership has been moderating some of their rhetoric against Pakistan.

Clearly things haven't gotten any better, but the good news is, things haven't gotten any worse. The Indians, obviously, over the past several days, Fredricka, have been concerned about one thing and they say the Pakistani president didn't address this issue adequately enough in his interview with CNN today. The biggest concern for the Indians is what they call cross-border terrorism.

Once again today the Pakistani president saying there is no cross-border terrorism. The Indian establishment, I've been talking to some people here, though there's been no official comment, as I've said. Some of them seemingly upset that once again the government of Pakistan has gone back to its old stated position of saying it doesn't exist, the Indian establishment saying the international community now recognizes that there is cross-border infiltration from Pakistan into India, so perhaps the general should have addressed that in his speech.

Also now what we're noticing here is the Indians are making preparations for their prime minister to fly Kazakhistan tomorrow. That is where the Pakistani president will also be there. Both leaders are there to attend an Asian security meeting and the hope of the international community certainly is that both will meet along the sidelines of this meeting, but so far the Indian prime minister's office is that no possibility of a meeting, even of talks. India says cross-border terrorism must stop before the Indians will encourage any diplomatic activity with Pakistan. Back to you now.

WHITFIELD: All right, Satinder. Thank you very much. Let's now continue our discussions about the tension between the neighboring nuclear powers and what could come next. With me now is Andrew Koch, Washington bureau chief for "Jane's Defence Weekly." Thank you for joining us.

ANDREW KOCH, WASHINGTON BUREAU CHIEF, "JANE'S DEFENCE WEEKLY": My pleasure.

WHITFIELD: Well, how sincere do you believe Perez Musharraf of Pakistan is?

KOCH: Well, the question is not whether President Musharraf is really intending on a nuclear war, for example, but once a war starts, for example with an Indian cross-border raid across the line of control, how to stop the process of India and Pakistan exchanging raids and bombing missions.

WHITFIELD: Well, whose job would that be, then, to stop it, I mean, if both sides are saying they're both obviously capable of it but they think it is unthinkable at this juncture to even talk about such a conflict involving nuclear power, who is going to be the middleman who is going to keep these two from going at it once tensions continue to reach that point?

KOCH: That's a really good question. I suppose that's coming down onto the leadership of the international community, particularly the United States, both sides are looking to in some ways help bail them out of this crisis and yet save face.

WHITFIELD: Well, let's talk about the nuclear powers that both of these nations have. Both of them saying they don't even want to think about the fact that this conflict could involve such arsenals, but what do we have or what do we know of in terms of what they have?

KOCH: Well, we know that both India and Pakistan have nuclear weapons. They tested them in 1998. We know that they're able to deliver them by both missiles and aircraft. We know that both sides have somewhere between 25 and 50 as a general estimate, and that were those weapons to be used in large scale, there would be literally million of casualties created.

WHITFIELD: Would this be about the closest these two have come in terms of the rising tensions to threatening use such nuclear power?

KOCH: There have been several instances in the past when they have threatened to use nuclear weapons and, in fact, where the United States government believed it was entirely possible. The most recent was in 1999, when there was a war in Kargil, which is up on a mountainous portion of Kashmir, and the Clinton administration believed a nuclear exchange was possible were things to continue to spiral out of control.

WHITFIELD: Although, let me clarify, still, though, neither side has really said that they're threatening to use the nuclear power, it is just that both nations have the power, correct?

KOCH: That's right. Although the Pakistani side is unofficially, that is, official Pakistani government representatives, off the record, or often on background, do often whisper this into the ear of journalists, for example, to get it out into the international community and send a message to states like India and the United States that this is very serious. That they need to be taken very seriously and that Indians should be afraid to start a war.

WHITFIELD: And it is being take so seriously outside of that region, even, that U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is now making plans to head to Pakistan next week. It's your opinion that -- what might his mission be? Will it be primarily the concern that Pakistani forces are leaving the Afghanistan border, perhaps jeopardizing the U.S. war against terrorism, or is it primarily his concern to keep these two powers from using nuclear warheads?

KOCH: I think clearly both of those points that you just mentioned will be on the agenda, but stopping a war, a simple conventional war between India and Pakistan, or doing whatever the United States can to cool the tensions there, has to be the number one priority for Secretary Rumsfeld.

The United States knows that the Musharraf government is under tremendous pressure at home and that it needs all of its forces to be able to reign in terrorism inside the country, to be able to protect the border with Afghanistan, and Pakistan really won't be able to do that unless it is able to shift the resources and the troops that it has now stationed along the border with India back towards the Afghan border, and it won't be able to do that unless tensions are reduced.

WHITFIELD: All right. Andrew Koch, thank you very much for joining us with "Jane's Defence Weekly," coming from Washington, D.C. now.

KOCH: My pleasure.

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