Nuclear hotline in September: India
By Jawed Naqvi,Dawn

NEW DELHI, Aug 24: The foreign secretaries of Indian and Pakistan would be on a hotline from September to help avert mutual misunderstandings that could otherwise trigger nuclear tensions between the two, Indian Minister of State for External Affairs Rao Inderjit Singh told the Lok Sabha on Wednesday.

He said an understanding on the proposed agreement on a pre-notification of flight testing of ballistic missiles was reached during the third round of India-Pakistan expert level dialogue on nuclear confidence building measures held in Delhi earlier this month.

“The proposed agreement commits both sides to pre-notify in a structural format flight testing of ballistic missiles, with the objective of enhancing mutual confidence and engendering predictability and transparency of intent,” Mr Singh said.

Both sides recommended the agreed text of the proposed agreement to the foreign secretaries.

“Details about implementation and testing schedules were exchanged. It was agreed that the hotline link will be established in September 2005,” Mr Singh said.

To fulfil its part of the obligation under the MoU of 21 Feb, 1999, which provides for undertaking national measures to reduce the risks of accidental or unauthorized use of nuclear weapons under their respective control, India handed over a draft of a proposed agreement to Pakistan, Mr Singh said.