By IRNA,
Islamabad: Pakistan and India will swap lists of nuclear installations and facilities on Saturday in spite of tension over the 2008 Mumbai attacks that has disrupted the dialogue process between the two countries.
Both countries exchange the list of nuclear sites on the first day of every new year under an agreement signed in 1988 that came into force in January 1991.
The first exchange took place on Jan 1, 1992, under the ‘Agreement on Prohibition of Attack against Nuclear Installations and Facilities between Pakistan and India.’
The lists will be handed over to officers of the Pakistani and Indian high commissions in Islamabad and New Delhi.
This will be the 20th consecutive list exchange between the two countries.
Pakistan and India conducted tit-for-tat nuclear tests in 1998. Both countries are de-facto nuclear-weapon powers.
India conducted its first nuclear test in 1974, followed by five more in 1998. Pakistan conducted tit-for-tat six nuclear tests in 1998.
Neither India nor Pakistan is a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). India considers the NPT discriminatory, while Pakistan has indicated that it won’t join the international agreement till its neighbour does so. Similarly, India and Pakistan have also not signed the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.
The New Year’s Day exchange is aimed at protecting the sites in case of war and was established under a 1988 agreement on the prohibition of attacks on each other’s nuclear installations.
Experts said that the pact is one of the best confidence-building measures between the two countries, which is continued despite deadlock in the so-called Composite Dialogue process.