Last year I said that the decade of detente had disappeared and an era of coldwar was round the corner. Now, I find things are still bad - rather worse today. Not only the detente has disappeared completely but confrontation has also started. The important thing that has happened in between the last debate and this debate was the election of President Reagan. I have nothing against anybody or against America or the American people as such. We want friendly relations with United States also we want friendly relations with U. S. S. R. The position is that the manner in which they are talking is not in the interest of World peace. One must accept this because what they are doing in our region is what frightens me. In the last two days, more disturbing news has appeared in the newspapers.
First of all, we were told that Pakistan was not willing to accept the arms from the United States of America as a conduit to Afghanistan. We have seen the news; since yesterday we are reading news the Pakistan is saying that we not do that until we are given enough.’ So it is a bargaining point. It was not a moral stand that they had taken that they would not accept arms to be sent through Pakistan to Afghanistan to fight the resistance there. They say that ‘we will not do that until we are given enough.’ This is a sort of bargaining. Mr. Foreign Minister, you should take note of one thing - there is an arms base in Diego Garcia. Unfortunately, there is going to be an arms base in Pakistan. This is a dangerous position that we are facing today. I am not panicky about it. We want friendship with Pakistan, I think we should take all possible initiatives to develop friendship with Pakistan but the reality also should not be forgotten. Our own experience about the last ten or twenty years must not be forgotten. In the garb of these friendly talks, preparations go and when preparations go on and when there is enough arms, these have a bad tendency of tempting the persons to act aggressively.
I remember in 1965 when we met in Tashkant, we were talking socially with some of the Pakistani friends there. Naturally, the people were rather free after taking two or three pegs. I am a tea-totaller. One man rather made a very interesting joke. I could not forget it, I asked him : ‘How, then you miscalculated and started this war?’ He said :’The difficulty with the Army Commanders is that sometimes they act first and think afterwards.’
Well, you please keep this in mind that such miscalculations will not take place again. These miscalculations must not take place in an international situation, in military matters, in starting of wars - may be phoney short wars, small wars, local wars. There is not going to be a big war, nuclear war, because both the Super Powers are wise enough. They know that it is not possible for anyone of them to win the war. If anybody goes for the nuclear war the whole humanity is going to perish. So, they are wise and will never so that. They may talk about it. They are conscious of the nuclear power but at the same time afraid of the nuclear power. They want to make use of the other smaller countries in the world and use them as tools to have their own strength and power safe in their own sphere of interest. This is what they are trying to do.
