INDIA: India and Pakistan yesterday discussed ways to tackle drug-smuggling across their frontiers, exchange intelligence and to conduct joint operations against the narcotics trade.
The two-day talks between Indian and Pakistani narcotics control officials in New Delhi are part of the "composite" peace dialogue between the nuclear rivals that began in January to improve bilateral relations.
The two sides have fought three wars and an 11-week border skirmish since independence 57 years ago.
"We have to fight the war against narcotic drugs together. It's a common cause. It has no borders, and no political considerations," said Major Gen Nadeem Ahmed, head of Pakistan's anti-narcotics force.
The first round of bilateral talks on curbing the drugs trade was held in June in Islamabad, when both sides exchanged views on stemming the flow of drugs coming from Pakistan's neighbour Afghanistan.
Afghanistan is the world's largest producer of opium and its derivative heroin.
According to the United Nations, poppy cultivation in Afghanistan has risen by nearly two-thirds to a record 131,000 hectares.
This year Afghanistan produced a record 4,200 tons of opium or around 87 per cent of the world's supply which has found its way to the West as heroin.
India, meanwhile, raised objections to the US supplying Pakistan with $1.2 billion worth of conventional weapons, including P-3C Orion surveillance planes.
It has made the objections before experts from both sides meet in Islamabad today to discuss confidence-building measures about each other's nuclear arsenals to avoid any disastrous miscalculation.
Islamabad is also seeking F-16 fighter aircraft from Washington, a move India's Defence Minister, Mr Pranab Mukherjee, said would trigger an arms race. However, he declined to comment on India's recent weapons purchases such as Russian fighters, an aircraft carrier and airborne early- warning radar systems.
During the nuclear talks the neighbours will try to formalise an existing agreement to notify each other of plans to conduct missile tests, a practice they informally follow.
In an earlier round of bilateral nuclear confidence-building measures, India and Pakistan decided to upgrade the "hotline" between the directors of military operations on either side, and to set up another communication link between the two foreign secretaries to tackle all risks pertaining to nuclear weapons.
However, analysts do not expect any breakthrough. Pakistan's anti-nuclear activist Dr Pervaiz Hoodbhoy described the talks as a "cosmetic attempt" by the countries to show they were responsible nuclear states.
"What they need to talk about is a reduction in nuclear arsenals, separating nuclear warheads from missiles and a shared explicit nuclear doctrine," Dr Hoodbhoy said. However, this was not going to be the case.
Tomorrow experts will hold similar talks about their conventional arsenals in Islamabad which, once again, is expected to end in a stalemate.