India and Pakistan on Friday conducted the annual exchange of the list of nuclear installations and facilities.
In accordance with Article-II of the Agreement on Prohibition of Attacks against Nuclear Installations and Facilities between Pakistan and India, the list of nuclear installations and facilities in Pakistan was officially handed over to a representative of the Indian High Commission at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
The Indian Ministry of External Affairs in New Delhi also handed over the list of Indian Nuclear installations and facilities to a representative of the Pakistan High Commission.
Here's all you need to know about the agreement, a bilateral arrangement, that requires both countries to exchange the list of nuclear facilities annually on January 1:
• The Agreement on Prohibition of Attacks against Nuclear Installations and Facilities contains the provision that both countries inform each other of their nuclear installations and facilities on January 1 every year.
• The agreement was signed on December 31, 1988 and it came into force on January 27, 1991.
• It has been a 30-year-practice to do so, under the bilateral arrangement that prohibits the two countries from attacking each other's atomic facilities.
• This has been done consecutively every year since 1992.
• The pact mandates the two countries to inform each other of the nuclear installations and facilities to be covered under the agreement on the first of January of every calendar year.
The agreement states:
1. (1) Each party shall refrain from undertaking, encouraging or participating in, directly or indirectly, any action aimed at causing the destruction of, or damage to, any nuclear installation or facility in the other country.
(2) The term "nuclear installation or facility" includes nuclear power and research reactors, fuel fabrication, uranium enrichment, isotopes separation and reprocessing facilities as well as any other installations with fresh or irradiated nuclear fuel and materials in any form and establishments storing significant quantities of radio-active materials.
2. Each Contracting Party shall inform the other on 1st January of each calendar year of the latitude and longitude of its nuclear installations and facilities and whenever there is any change.
3. This Agreement is subject to ratification. It shall come into force with effect from the date on which the Instruments of Ratification are exchanged.
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The exchange was carried out through diplomatic channels simultaneously in New Delhi and Islamabad.
The exchange of the list came amid frosty ties between the two countries over the Kashmir issue as well as cross-border terrorism.
(With inputs from agencies and the Union Ministry of External Affairs)
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