Some plain speaking by President Kalam…

India had to become a nuclear state: Prez Kalam
[ Thursday, February 02, 2006 10:56:04 am PTI ]

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1397489.cms

SINGAPORE : President A P J Abdul Kalam on Wednesday said some kind of federation between India and Pakistan looked a possibility in another 50 years.

“It looks to me that in another 50 years a federation of the two countries is possible if youth worked towards it but not an integration,” he said when asked at an interactive session with the students of Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan International School in Singapore whether India and Pakistan can reunite.

Prefacing his answer to the question, the President said the two erstwhile power blocs Russia and United States, each armed with nuclear warheads, have “suddenly become friends. The two Germanys have reunited.”

In reply to another question, Kalam suggested India had to go nuclear because of the presence of atomic weapons in the subcontinent.

Without naming China or Pakistan, Kalam said “ there are nuclear weapons in the subcontinent and India has witnessed a 3,000-year history of many invasions by kings who ruled the country for hundreds of years.” “We had to become a nuclear state, ” he added. The President, however, pointed out that India was committed to no-first use of nuclear weapons and total nuclear disarmament.

“The day other states reduce their nuclear arsenal, we are going to follow suit,” he added.