Pakistan Moves to Mend Fences With India

Doubled arsenal surpasses India's

(NEWSER) - Pakistan likely has more than 100 deployed nuclear weapons, or twice what it had just a few years ago, analysts tell the Washington Post . The country has sped up its uranium and plutonium production, and devised new delivery systems for it, pushing its nuclear capabilities ahead of India’s. That's unlikely to sit well with the US, which has been pushing nonproliferation in the region, but Pakistan has long complained that restrictions on its nuclear growth unfairly favor India. More»

(NEWSER) - Revamped leadership in India and Pakistan and some behind-the-scenes encouragement from the US could lead to negotiations over the disputed Kashmir region, the New York Times reports. But while there are shimmers of hope, the relationship is still strained. “I am happy to meet you,” India’s PM told Pakistan’s president today, “but my mandate is to tell you that the territory of Pakistan must not be used for terrorism.” More»

Trading needed aid dollars for elimination of WMDs would be cheap compared to bailout

(NEWSER) - Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal has done nothing to steady its economy or deter terrorism, Bret Stephens notes in the Wall Street Journal—so why not sell it to the West? Pakistan has already lobbied for economic aid; for eliminating “its entire nuclear stockpile and the industrial base that sustains it,” Stephens writes, “the US and other Western donors would agree to a $100 billion economic package.” More»

Pakistan downplays 'accident,' while Brown reads riot act to Zardari

(NEWSER) - India fighter jets crossed into Pakistan territory yesterday before being intercepted by Pakistani aircraft who harried them back to their own nation, according to officials in Islamabad. The jets buzzed two regions where Indian officials charge that terrorists are being trained, reports the New York Times. Pakistan downplayed the "accidental" incursion today. Indian officials are denying it happened. More»

Terrorists sought to impede country's peace process with India

(NEWSER) - Pakistan played no part in the Mumbai attacks, President Asif Ali Zardari writes in today’s New York Times, except perhaps as a co-victim. The attacks “were directed not only at India,” he writes, “but at Pakistan’s new democratic government and the peace process with India that we have initiated.” The atrocity painfully reminded Zardari of the attack on wife Benazir Bhutto last October, which killed nearly 150 Pakistanis; almost 2000 more have died this year alone. More»