Dawn.com, Washington :
“The specter of nuclear war haunts tensions between India and Pakistan, and the disputed territory of Kashmir could provide the spark that lights South Asia’s nuclear fuse,” warns a report published by a US think-tank on Saturday.
The report – by Stratfor, a geopolitical intelligence platform based in Austin, Texas – also disputes the classification of the Kashmir issue as India’s “internal affair” or a “bilateral” issue between India and Pakistan. “It isn’t. A potential nuclear conflagration cannot be anything other than a matter of international peace and security,” the report warns.
According to the report, the possibility of “the conflict going nuclear may have increased on Aug 16”, when Indian Defence Minister Rajnath Singh seemed to abandon India’s “no first use” doctrine. Mr Singh tweeted that “India has strictly adhered to this doctrine. What happens in the future depends on the circumstances”. And “the circumstances are not hopeful”, the report adds.
The report points out that during a recent visit to the occupied valley, correspondents for The New York Times met a herdsman beside his flock in the Kashmiri capital, Srinagar. As a car carrying a reporter slowed down to approach him, the herdsman sprang up and jogged to the window. “We are ready to pick up guns,” he said, unprompted.
