The scientist who has led Pakistan's nuclear test programme said yesterday his country was capable of deploying nuclear weapons "within days". Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan said that such weapons were compatible with their missile delivery systems. He claimed Pakistan's nuclear technology was superior to India's.
Pakistan played tough over its series of nuclear tests yesterday, vowing to stand up to global sanctions and demanding that India negotiate about Kashmir. Pakistan also accused India of preparing new tests, which India denied.
India called for a new nuclear weapons convention along the lines of existing agreements outlawing chemical and biological arms in "a global non-discriminatory framework". The proposal was regarded as unrealistic in the face of insistence by the United States, Russia, China, Britain and France that under the non-proliferation treaty (NPT) only they may possess nuclear weapons.
"We have restored the strategic and military balance in the region," said the Pakistani Foreign Minister, Mr Gohar Ayub Khan, again insisting Pakistan was forced to go nuclear by Indian "aggression".
While India reiterated its offer of a "no first strike" pact with Pakistan aimed at ensuring the two enemies never launch a nuclear attack on each other, Pakistani officials rejected it.
"Who on God's earth will determine as to who launched it first?" Mr Khan said on state television.
Speaking to CNN yesterday, Mr Khan claimed India was planning new nuclear tests in the first or second week of July.
But on the same programme moments later, India's ambassador to Washington, Mr Naresh Chandra, denied that additional tests were planned. "This information is obviously a pure concoction," Mr Chandra said.
The Pakistani Prime Minister, Mr Nawaz Sharif, rejected the new wave of condemnation which met Pakistan's sixth nuclear test on Saturday two days after the country detonated five nuclear bombs at an underground site in Baluchistan province, near the Afghan border.
"We will never barter our security," he told thousands of cheering supporters in Lahore.
Pakistan said it was willing to sign a "non-aggression pact" with India, conditional on Delhi entering talks on their territorial dispute over Kashmir, the source of two wars in the past 50 years.
India categorically refuses to discuss the sovereignty of Kashmir.
President Clinton signed a memo directing that sanctions affecting billions of dollars in badly needed international loans to Pakistan be implemented. Similar sanctions were imposed on India for its tests.
The UN Security Council also issued a swift reply after an emergency meeting of the 15-member body, saying it deeply deplored the new test.
Britain announced a meeting of the G8 industrialised states in London on June 12th to confront the India-Pakistan nuclear crisis.
Dr Khan said yesterday his country could produce nuclear weapons within days. The man who has achieved hero status as the architect of Pakistan's nuclear programme boasted that Pakistan's nuclear and missile technology surpassed India's.
"It won't need months or weeks. We can deploy nuclear weapons in a matter of days," Dr Khan said.
The leader of the extreme Palestinian group Hamas has praised Pakistan's nuclear tests as an asset to the Islamic world, although Arab governments generally have expressed regret at the nuclear tests by the two rivals.