Khaled Ahmed, consulting editor The Friday Times, led the first session in the series. Mr. Ahmed opened up the discussion before the participants, highlighting the effects in the engulfed with nuclear frenzy.  This session was followed by a healthy discussion with contributions from senior journalists like Aziz Mazhar, Azad Kausary, Saqlain Imam, president Press club, and Anwar Dohlan advocate. 
Khaled Ahmed said that once the explosions had taken place the question whether the explosions were good or bad was no longer relevant. The question he held pertinent was, “where to go from here?” Pakistan had been trying to follow India, Khaled Ahmed maintained, irrespective of the consequences of this exercise.

“It is a known fact that Pakistan developed nuclear capability some15 years ago. There was no need to explode the device once the world knew that we possess the nuclear capability. We went for it and this has tarnished our international standing. Before the explosion, Pakistan’s stance was considered malleable in contrast to India’s,” Khalid Ahmed said.

He was of the opinion that Pakistan should immediately sign the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT). That in his view would enhance its credibility in contrast to India.  “CTBT won’t affect Pakistan’s nuclear program because it would take three to five years for the treaty to get implemented, which is also not possible unless both countries have signed it. So in case the threat from India stays, Pakistan always has the option to back out. But, for the time being, Pakistan’s initiative regarding CTBT will help it maintaining an objective and pro-peace stance,” he said. 

Mr Ahmed further said that to have good relationships with the world community is more than important for “Economically, Pakistan is solely dependent on the loans from international financial institutions. And if the loans are ceased following any sanctions which are very likely to be imposed on both the countries, Pakistan is going to suffer more than India,” he added. 

He said all the sane segments of society were against nuclear weapons anyway. “Since there is not even a buffer zone between India and Pakistan, explosion by any of the two is going to devastate the entire subcontinent,” he inferred.

Criticising the concept of deterrence as being exploited by those who were in favour of the explosions, he said whenever the deterrence is balanced out, the cold war gets intensified and that is even worse for the common people. He was of the opinion that the common people are hit with the evasive measures, like the acts of terrorism, as a result of the cold war. 

Khaled Ahmed believed that the common man was going to be the worst affected by the aftermath of those explosions. “Beside the political and economic effects, such a drastic step by the government can also lead the society to cultural metamorphosis,” he maintained. 

He said the efforts being made at different levels to resolve Pak-India conflict were nullified immediately after the nuclear tests. “The initiatives to maintain peace in region, whether at the state level or at people’s level, went down the drain. By conducting nuclear tests, both the countries have thoughtlessly traded a peaceful relationship for a fearful deterrence,” he observed. He was of the view that the agenda of the international bodies, like SAARC, would be held in abeyance for at least a couple of years as a result of the tests.

He said that soon after the explosion, the nation was made to think in terms of war that also caused serious psychological problems. “Common man starts taking false pride in the whole affair and that totally changes the priorities of the community as a whole,” he added. 

Khaled Ahmed also did not consider the decision to go for nuclear tests based on ‘intelligence’. He said it was rather an ‘ideological’ matter. Elaborating on his point, he referred to efforts being made to establish Pakistan’s nuclear bomb as an ‘Islamic’ bomb. “Those who believe in war between first Pakistan and India, and then the Muslim Ummah and the West, are fanning such emotion of hatred and unfortunately, they are gaining strength,” he maintained. 

He said the religious sentiment is exploited by the government for two reasons -- one, because it had to justify its position and, the other, because it also planned to default the loans taken from the international financial institutions. However, he added, such an approach would only lead to an internal anarchy and a total isolation from the rest of the world. 

He said the Pakistan government thought it’ll be able to seek financial help from the Islamic countries while offering them nuclear security. However, he believed, it was far too optimistic to think like that because the Muslim countries, like Saudi Arabia, which were in a position to help Pakistan, had better ties with the West, and they would rather go under the nuclear umbrella of the US or Israel. 

Another important thing to worry about, Khaled Ahmed said, was the command and control of the nuclear weapons. He said in Pakistan, the sole prerogative of using the nuclear weapons lied with the General headquarters of Army where there was no access whatsoever in terms of information. “No one knows what goes on in there, and then there are individual personalities like some of the former generals who can still influence such decisions more than the parliament itself. They all have their own agendas, so one cannot be very sure about the use of nuclear weapons. And this is what the West worries about the most,’’ he added. 

Veteran journalist and a member of JRC’s Board of Governors, Aziz Mazhar, sharing his views with the participants, said Pakistan had not been able to use these explosions as a nice strategy to resolve the core issues with India. “It has even disturbed its relations with the US and other important countries that could have mediated between India and Now, the future of a peaceful resolution of the conflict between the two countries has become even more bleak.”

“Since there was no significant effort to evolve a consensus on this issue,” Aziz Mazhar further said, “there appears to be a sort of a divide rather a sense of unity which is inevitable in a state of crisis. Apparently, these explosions have added to the hardships being faced by the people instead of resolving any of the problems,” he added. 

The dialogue concluded with an aim to continue the debate on the situation arising out of the test explosions, by holding similar sessions to view the issue with different angles. 

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