By Staff Reporter
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan and India on Sunday exchanged a list of their nuclear installations, the foreign office statement said on Sunday, as part of an annual ritual that has been in practice between the two nuclear-armed neighbours for more than three decades.
The lists are exchanged annually on January 1.
The lists of nuclear installation and facilities were exchanged as per the provisions of the Article-II of the Agreement on Prohibition of Attacks against Nuclear Installations and Facilities, signed on December 31, 1988 and ratified on 27 January 1991.
“The list of nuclear installations and facilities in Pakistan was officially handed over to a representative of the Indian High Commission in Islamabad at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs today,” the office said in a statement.
Simultaneously, the Indian Ministry of External Affairs also handed over their list of nuclear installations and facilities to a representative of the Pakistan High Commission in New Delhi, the foreign office said.
This was the 32nd consecutive exchange of such lists between the two countries, the first one having taken place on January 1, 1992.
Pakistan and India both conducted nuclear weapons tests in 1998. The pact prohibits attacks on such installations.
In a separate statement, Pakistan said the two countries had also exchanged lists of each other’s citizens held in prisons.
Foreign Office said in a statement Islamabad has requested the early release and repatriation of 51 Pakistani civilian prisoners and 94 fishermen who had completed their sentence and whose nationality had been confirmed.
“Furthermore, a request for grant of consular access to missing defence personnel of 1965 and 1971 wars, and special consular access to 56 civil prisoners has also been made,” it said.
India currently has 339 Pakistani civilian prisoners and 95 fishermen in its custody. Pakistan shared a list of 51 Indian civilian prisoners and 654 fishermen in its custody.
The signing of the 2008 agreement had helped speed up the identification and release of hundreds of prisoners, a majority of them fishermen. However, the process has been hit in recent years by bilateral tensions.
Fishermen from each country are often arrested when they stray into the other’s waters.
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