Pakistan, India to swap nuclear sites lists today

ISLAMABAD - Pakistan and India will swap the lists of their nuclear facilities and installations today despite the tension in their relations in the wake of Mumbai terrorist attacks. The South Asian nuclear rivals will exchange the lists simultaneously in Islamabad and New Delhi under a bilateral agreement that they signed on December 31, 1988 but ratified on January 27, 1991. The agreement requires an annual exchange of lists detailing the locations of all nuclear-related facilities that should not be attacked in war. The Indian Ministry for External Affairs will hand over the documents to the Pakistani High Commission in New Delhi, while the Pakistani Foreign Ministry will give the list to the Indian HC here, said an official here desiring not to be named. He said that Pakistan and India exchanged the first lists of their nuclear installations on January 1, 1992. Both the sides had been swapping the lists of nuclear facilities every year since 1992 except in 2002 when there was a troops build-up on Indo-Pak border after the December 2001 attack on Indian Parliament, the official added.

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