WASHINGTON: "If agreed upon, it is likely to serve as a stepping stone towards bringing about a radical shift in the security environment of South Asia," says a new report of the Henry L. Stimson Centre made public Wednesday night. Both countries could benefit greatly from these institutions, it says. The document has been authored by Rafi uz Zaman Khan of the Strategic Plans Directorate, a joint service body in Pakistan that works on a wide range of policies associated with nuclear deterrence in that country. It says the concept of NRRCs could form part of the agenda in any dialogue between the two countries. An agreement, setting up nuclear risk reduction centres, should be promptly negotiated and implemented without waiting for the resolution of the Kashmir dispute, which, it says, might take time due to its own dynamics and complexity. It says the NRRCs may, thus, become the highest-level central coordinating institution for the implementation of confidence-building measures but they cannot be seen as a replacement for political and diplomatic lines of communication. "Following the nuclearisation of South Asia, renewed escalation between these two traditional rivals could end with horrific consequences," it warns. The document wants New Delhi and Islamabad to borrow the relevant experience of the United States and Russia. The U.S. NRRC and its then Soviet counterpart were formally set up on September 15, 1987. The two centres provided the first direct communication links between Washington and Moscow since the installation of the presidential "hot-line" in 1963. It notes the existence between India and Pakistan of an undertaking to refrain from use of force and the peaceful settlement of disputes. They have also reached an understanding for taking nuclear risk reduction measures and creating an appropriate consultative mechanism, along with periodically reviewing existing confidence building measures. The report says Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and President Pervez Musharraf agreed upon the structure for this process at the Agra summit in 2001. "Only a sustained and meaningful dialogue between the two countries could lead us towards conflict resolution and to start the process." Khan wrote the report while on a visiting fellowship at the Stimson Centre. The Stimson Centre's South Asia Visiting Fellows programme brings Indian and Pakistani researchers, academics, military officers and journalists here for up to three months to familiarise them with the theory and practice of arms control, disarmament, nuclear risk reduction, and confidence-building measures.
Source: IANS