Issue of Kashmir

From ET Citings:

• TAKE the issue of Kashmir. We are not going to give in to threats. We cannot take any step which is detrimental to Kashmir’s interests. Kashmir is an integral part of India and we are going to endorse any further truncation of the country. We shall not budge from our principles. Yet we are fully aware of the need for friendship with Pakistan and will continue to make sincere efforts in that direction. The problem is that the government of Pakistan places great reliance on armaments and threats of force. Unfortunately, the Great Powers are aiding and abetting Pakistan by supplying arms to it on a lavish scale. This adds to its reliance on armaments. You may have read in the newspapers that the Prime Minister of Pakistan has requested the Baghdad Pact countries for nuclear weapons. (Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, Turkey and the UK were members of the Baghdad Pact. Speaking at the meeting of the Baghdad Pact countries, held in Ankara from 27 to 30 January 1958, Prime Minister of Pakistan Firoz Khan Noon emphasised on 27 January, the urgent need for equipping the member-countries with “weapons similar to those which they may have to encounter should peace in this area be unfortunately disturbed.” US Secretary of State John Foster Dulles also attended this meeting as an observer).

• I do not know if the report is correct and if it is so whether there is anyone in Pakistan with the technical knowhow and expertise to be able to use nuclear weapons. But they have asked for them.

(Jawaharlal Nehru: SELECTED WORKS (VOL 41)