Pakistan has formally asked Japan to act as mediator between it and the international community to ease tensions raised by Islamabad's nuclear test explosions, Japanese Foreign Ministry officials said yesterday.
Pakistani Foreign Ministry official, Mr Tariq Altaf, conveyed the request to Japan's ambassador to Pakistan, Mr Minoru Kubota, on Monday, the officials said.
Islamabad's call for Japanese mediation came as Japan floated the idea of arranging talks between Pakistan and India in Tokyo to discuss the dispute between the two countries over Kashmir.
"It would be good if we could invite the two countries and work for a peaceful solution," the Japanese Foreign Minister, Mr Keizo Obuchi, told a news conference in Tokyo. "We want to make the proposal as soon as possible." But Mr Obuchi said it was doubtful whether the two countries would accept the proposal, since both of them considered Kashmir a domestic issue.
Meanwhile, in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, the Prime Minister, Mr Nawaz Sharif, launched a national self-reliance fund to deal with the effects of international sanctions over Pakistan's nuclear tests and appealed for a mass response.
In a televised address he asked Pakistanis at home and abroad to donate generously to the fund.
Calling last week's tests of nuclear devices by Pakistan as auspicious events, Mr Sharif said his government championed national self-reliance.
Some 40 countries at the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva demanded yesterday that India and Pakistan immediately sign UN nuclear non-proliferation treaties.