Ambassador Defends Nuclear Tests

Nuclear disarmament in South Asia will not begin until India and Pakistan resolve their fundamental differences, said Pakistani Ambassador to the U.S. Riaz Khokar last night in a speech at Coolidge Hall.

Khokar's speech on "Hindus, Muslims and the Bomb: Relations Between India and Pakistan in the 21st Century," sponsored by the Harvard chapter of the World Conference on Religion and Peace (WCRP), drew about 40 listeners.

The ambassador defended Pakistan's nuclear weapons tests in May 1998, saying they were necessary to maintain parity in the region after India conducted similar tests.

"Pakistan does not want confrontation with India," Khokar said. "We've had wars in the past, and in every war we've come out the worse."

"I don't think nuclear weapons add to our security or Indian security," he added.

Since last year's tests, both Pakistan and India have discussed signing the United Nations' (UN) Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. While no formal agreement has been made, Khokar said his government is committed to signing the treaty before it goes into effect in September.

Khokar added that the UN--and specifically the United States--must work harder to bring Indian and Pakistani representatives to the negotiating table.

"We have seen no sincerity of purpose from India in the dialogue so far," he said. "The international community must persuade them to sit down and seriously discuss these differences...and make suggestions from the sidelines."

Khokar also said India must end what he described as "hegemonistic policies" in South Asia.

Although he declined to cite specific examples, he did say India has tried to influence the policies of smaller neighbors such as Nepal.

The fate of the Indian territories of Jammu and Kashmir, a predominantly Muslim region which has been the source of conflict between the two nations for over 50 years, is central to the disarmament question, Khokar said.

"We must have a durable resolution of the Kashmir dispute in accordance with the wishes of the people there," Khokar said. "We must uphold the right of self-determination of those 12 million people."

In the second part of this WCRP series, Indian Ambassador to the United States Naresh Chandra will speak at Harvard April 8.

The WCRP is a UN organization with chapters around the world. According to Reza Aslan, president of the Harvard branch, Harvard's is the only student-organized chapter in existence.

Aslan, a second-year Harvard Divinity School student, said the organization asked the ambassador to speak as part of their ongoing discussion of the role of religion in world events.

"This is an old conflict, so almost everything has been said already," Asian said. "We were hoping to look at this issue with a religious twist, and I think [Khokar] addressed that well."

Sami S. Siddiqui, a University of Rochester graduate who attended the event, said that while Khokar was able to speak more freely in an academic environment than in a political one, there were still cultural issues that he left unaddressed.

"There's a lot more to this than just what the governments say," said Siddiqui, who grew up in Pakistan. "What's said locally and what's taught in schools also affects the relations [between India and Pakistan]."