INDIA: The US Defence Secretary, Mr Donald Rumsfeld.leaves today on a trip that will include stops in India and Pakistan aimed at cooling tensions between the nuclear rivals, and visits to Europe and the Gulf, US officials said yesterday.
Mr Rumsfeld will follow the Deputy Secretary of State, Mr Richard Armitage, to India and Pakistan in a push by the Bush administration to ease tensions amid fears that further escalation could lead them to the brink of nuclear war.
Meanwhile, the Indian military yesterday distanced itself from comments of its civilian boss on the use of nuclear weapons in war but the country's chief security advisor said New Delhi would retaliate in kind if attacked by atom bombs.
The flip-flop approach of New Delhi's stand on the use of nuclear weapons came as Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee in Kazakhstan prepared for Tuesday's regional security summit in Almaty, also attended by Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf.
The Indian defence ministry in New Delhi appeared to contradict the explosive comments of Defence Secretary Mr Yogendra Narain, the military's seniormost civilian boss.
"The government makes it clear that India does not believe in the use of nuclear weapons. Neither does it visualise that it will be used by any other country," the ministry said.
"As a responsible nation India feels it will be imprudent to use such weapons," it added.
The ministry statement appeared to be a damage control exercise following Narain's comments that India would retaliate with nuclear weapons if Pakistan used its nuclear arsenal, and that both countries must be prepared for "mutual destruction." National Security Advisor Mr Brajesh Mishra, who is also camping in Almaty, bluntly backed his bureaucrat colleague Mr Narain but did not name Pakistan, which has fought three wars with India since 1947.
"Of course not, it is not ruled out," Mishra said in a reply to queries if India would retaliate with such weapons following a nuclear strike by Pakistan.
"We want to use it as a deterrent but obviously if somebody attacks us, then there will be a response. (But) we don't want to indulge in any loose talk about nuclear weapons. We want to avoid it totally," said Mishra, one of India's 10 most powerful men.
After testing five nuclear devices in May 1998, India put a moratorium on further tests and said its stockpile was built on the policy of minimum credible deterrence and that it would follow a no-first-use rule.
Pakistan conducted rival tests the same month, but gave no such assurances.
The two rivals have placed one million troops on their borders following an attack on the Indian parliament in December, which New Delhi blames on Pakistan-based Muslim guerrillas.
Mr Narain and Mr Mishra's remarks appeared diametrically opposite to the comments of Defence Minister Mr George Fernandes who at a regional security meeting in Singapore ruled out any use of nuclear bombs in the event of war with Pakistan.
Mr Narain also said in an interview with Outlook magazine that India's command-and-control, or the nuclear button, was in place and ready to use.
It was the first such public comment by a senior bureaucrat on India's nuclear command structure.
Mr Narain's warning came a day after Musharraf dismissed as "absolutely baseless" charges that Pakistan had moved nuclear missiles to the border.