MADRAS, India -- The world entered the New Year with a greater fear of a nuclear catastrophe. Adding to the alarm over North Korea's disclosure that it possesses atomic weapons was Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf's assertion that he was ready to use them during heightened tension with India early last year.
"I personally conveyed messages to India's Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, through every international leader who came to Pakistan, that if Indian troops moved a single step across the international border, or Line of Control, they should not expect a conventional war from Pakistan," he told Pakistani Air Force veterans on the penultimate day of 2002.
The eyeball-to-eyeball confrontation between the two nuclear Asian neighbors -- who have been quarreling over Kashmir, a region claimed by both -- did not lead to a full-blown war, largely because of sustained international diplomacy. What is now of paramount importance is to try and convince both India and Pakistan to get rid of their nuclear arsenal. Admittedly, this is easier said than done.