Activists ask India, Pakistan to shun nuke confrontation

A group of eminent people and activists from south Asian nations Monday appealed to the leaders from India and Pakistan to give up nuclear confrontation.

"India and Pakistan have amassed some 200 nuclear warheads in self-defence," a memorandum by the Campaign for South Asian Democratic Union (SADU) said here.

"But the nuclear weapons in 'self-defence' is an irrational political reasoning. For, the nuclear weapons do not differentiate between friends and foes," it added.

The memorandum came ahead of the two-day South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) summit meeting in Nepal Nov 26-27. The grouping has eight countries as its members.

It urged south Asian countries "to forgo the path of confrontation and accept the challenges posed by the grim elements of narrow regional, sub-national and sectarian forces, within and without the south Asian borders".

The memorandum said: "The sectarian cold-war politics have blinded the leaders to perpetuate the out-dated narrow sub-national and sectarian identities."

The memorandum was signed by former Indian attorney general Soli J. Sorabjee, economist Meghnad Desai, Bangladeshi journalist Haroon Habib and Pakistani human rights activist I.A. Rehman, among others.