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No more tests: President

Deepak Goel in Kathmandu

President K R Narayanan today ruled out India conducting any more nuclear tests in view of Pakistan having conducted another test earlier in the day.

''There is no need for us to go in for such tests... It is not a competitive game,'' he said while talking to the Indian media at the Narayanhity palace in Kathmandu shortly before the conclusion of his three-day visit to Nepal on Saturday evening.

Today's nuclear test by Pakistan were of the same nature as the ones done two days earlier, he pointed out, adding, ''they do not mean any technological improvement... They are more or less repititive.''

Narayanan further expressed the hope that the region would not be adversely affected by the recent nuclear tests. ''The reactions are there because of their novelty. In other regions, where such tests are regularly being undertaken, they were treated as normal.''

He was also optimistic that the recent nuclear tests by the two countries need not affect adversely the dialogue that had been going on between India and Pakistan.

Citing the European example, where various countries who had fought each other and conducted nuclear tests regularly but were now coexisting not only peacefully but also consolidating economic co-operation, the President said there was no reason why India and Pakistan could also not yet continue their dialogue and reach an amicable settlement.

Referring to China, the remaining nuclear power in the vicinity and one for the past thirty years, Narayanan observed that Indian efforts to build bridges of better understanding would continue.

"When we have co-existed for 30 years with China as a nuclear state, we can continue to do so even when we, too, are one... This is not an anti-China weapon," the President, a former ambassador to China, said.

UNI

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