Jun 2, 2002 5 min read

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) – Pakistan’s president, stopping short of matching India’s pledge not to use nuclear weapons first, said Saturday “any sane individual” would not allow tensions between the two nations to escalate into a nuclear war. However, the growing fear of a wider conflict between the nations prompted the United Nations on Saturday to tell its staffers in the region to send their families home. France, Israel and South Korea also joined the list of nations advising their citizens to leave the region as the South Asian neighbors continued shelling each other along their border, killing at least eight people.

In an interview with CNN, Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf said nuclear conflict was unthinkable.

He also restated his willingness to negotiate with India.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has offered to mediate during next week’s regional summit in Kazakhstan to be attended by Musharraf and Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee. India’s defense minister said Saturday there was no sign of a reconciliation with Pakistan. India has demanded that

Pakistan first stop cross-border incursions by Islamic militants blamed by New Delhi for two major terrorist attacks over the last six months.

Musharraf told CNN that Pakistan has called for a no-war pact with India and the denuclearization of South Asia. He was asked about the possibility that the current situation could escalate into nuclear war.

“I don’t think either side is that irresponsible to go to that limit,” Musharraf said. “I would even go to the extent of saying one shouldn’t even be discussing these things, because any sane individual cannot even think of going into this unconventional war, whatever the pressures.”

Concern about Pakistan using nuclear weapons stems from the fact that Pakistan has a much smaller military than India. India has a policy of not using nuclear weapons first in a conflict.

But concern still mounted about a broader military conflict as neither country offered a diplomatic solution to end their long dispute over Kashmir, the spark for two of their three wars.

“There is still no coming closer in sight,” Indian Defense Minister George Fernandes said while attending a regional security conference in Singapore.

Asked if military officials of the two countries might meet, he said, “I don’t think there is any such possibility.”

The recent terror attacks ratcheted up tensions over Kashmir and has led to the deployment of more than 1 million troops along the border.

Cross-border shelling Saturday killed three civilians in India and two in Pakistan, according to official reports.

A grenade attack by suspected Islamic militants also killed a 14-year-old boy and injured 16 people, including two soldiers, in Srinagar, the summer capital of India’s Jammu-Kashmir state, while a gunfight between Indian paramilitary forces and guerrillas in Nihalpora, some 22 miles to the north, killed one militant and a teen-age boy caught in the cross fire, Indian officials said.

The United Nations said Saturday its Pakistan and India staffs have been ordered to send their families home in the next few days. The order covers 260 dependents in India and several hundred more in Pakistan.

“This is not a product of any assessment that the situation is getting more dangerous by the minute, but an attempt to deal with the potential situation before it develops,” U.N. spokesman Feodor Starcevik said in New Delhi.

The nations that previously advised their citizens to leave India include the United States and Britain.

“The fact that both of these countries possess nuclear weapons is part of our thinking,” State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said Friday in Washington.

Pakistan and India routinely trade tit-for-tat charges and actions and accuse each other of spying. On Saturday Pakistan detained an Indian High Commission – or embassy – worker for receiving sensitive documents.

A day earlier, India detained a Pakistani High Commission employee for allegedly taking classified defense documents from a retired Indian air force official.

Pakistan on Saturday denied reports that Musharraf ordered his troops in Kashmir to halt the cross-border infiltration of militants.

“We can’t say first we are doing this thing and now we are not,” Musharraf spokesman Gen. Rashid Quereshi said. “What we are saying simply is that … Musharraf in his January 12 speech made it clear that Pakistan will not allow its territory to be used for export of terrorism and extremism.”

In that speech, Musharraf condemned terrorism and pledged to halt terrorists operating from Pakistani territory. He arrested thousands of suspected Islamic extremists and banned several militant groups. However, many of those arrested are believed to have since been released.

Secretary of State Colin Powell said Friday Pakistan may have ordered a halt to extremists’ incursions into India-controlled Kashmir, but it was too early to say those infiltrations had ended.

India accuses Pakistan of supporting Islamic militant groups waging a 12-year insurgency in Indian Kashmir, demanding the independence or merger with Pakistan of India’s only Muslim-majority state. At least 60,000 people have died in Kashmir since 1989.

Pakistan says it offers only moral and diplomatic support for the insurgents and does not back terrorist attacks.

Last week, Musharraf claimed cross-border incursions by Pakistan-based Islamic militants had ended.

He told CNN his country is “against militancy” and “will fight militancy in any form” but said Kashmiri separatists are engaged in “a genuine freedom struggle” to force the implementation of a U.N. resolution calling for the right of self-determination.

The Indian army said 21 Kashmiri militants of the Hezb-ul Mujahedeen, or Party of Holy Warriors, surrendered in a growing split between Kashmiri and Pakistani members of the group. The Pakistan-based group’s commander in Indian Kashmir, Abdul Majid Dar, was ousted after saying he favored negotiations with India.

Pakistan has moved some troops away from the Afghan border, where they are helping U.S. forces in the campaign to flush out al-Qaida and Taliban militants. Islamabad is considering redeploying the soldiers to the Indian frontier.