Agence France-Presse,
ISLAMABAD: Nuclear-armed rivals India and Pakistan signed agreements Monday on giving advance notice of ballistic missile tests, and on setting up a hotline between their coast guard agencies, officials said.
The signing was witnessed by visiting Indian Foreign Minister Natwar Singh and his Pakistani counterpart Khurshid Kasuri after talks to review a peace process started last year, a Pakistan foreign ministry official said.
“The agreement entails that both countries provide each other advance notification of flight tests that it intends to undertake of any surface-to-surface ballistic missile,” said a statement referring to the missile agreement.
The missile test warning deal was first struck during talks between Indian and Pakistani officials in New Delhi in August but was now being officially brought into force.
Pakistan and India conducted tit-for-tat test nuclear detonations in 1998 and came to the brink of war in 2002. The historical rivals, who have already fought three wars, routinely carry out tests of nuclear-capable missiles.
The second agreement was on the establishment of a hotline between the maritime authorities of Pakistan and India.
“The communication link will lead to early exchange of information between the two sides regarding apprehended fishermen who inadvertently stray into each others territories,” the statement said.
“The communication link will facilitate the early intimation, which in turn would lead to an early beginning of the process of providing consular access, nationality verification and repatriation” of arrested fishermen, it added.
Pakistan and Indian coast guards routinely arrest each others' fishermen for straying into their respective territorial waters in the Arabian Sea and it can take years for them to be repatriated.
