20000219Activists urge

Activists urge nuclear disarmament in Pakistan, India

DHAKA: Peace activists began a three-day conference in the Bangladeshi capital on Friday calling for nuclear disarmament in Pakistan and India.

The meeting is being organised by a Bangkok-based non-government organisation "FOCUS on the Global South" and Bangladesh's Community Development Library.

"Non-proliferation is the theme while the conference will focus on disarmament...with a call to Pakistan and India to destroy their nuclear weapons," Varsa Rajan Berry, a research associate with FOCUS, told Reuters.

She said conference participants would stage demonstrations outside the India and Pakistan High Commissions in Dhaka on Sunday to highlight their cause. India and Pakistan carried out a series of tit-for-tat nuclear tests in May 1998 and declared themselves nuclear weapon states.-Reuters