The PM's fire-and-ice speech to both Houses of Parliament was calculated to reassure the international community while not measurably altering New Delhi's stand. Vajpayee struck a delicate balance between conciliation and hawkishness towards Beijing and Islamabad. Stating India's desire for cordial relations with its neighbours, he said that the government did not intend to precipitate an arms race, "hostilities notwithstanding", and promised a measured and restrained reponse to the emerging situation.

At the same time, he warned that defence cooperation between China and Pakistan remained a cause for concern. "Pakistan remains unreconciled to good relations with India.Defence assistance to Pakistan directly affects India," he said, adding that India favoured a good relationship with China and was committed to a process of dialogue to resolve differences with its neighbours.

Pakistan's nuclear tests loomed in the foreground of the three-day debate in Parliament on the Pokhran tests, with angry and concerned Opposition MPs saying that Pakistan was forced to conduct its tests after Pokharan.

In his reply, Vajpayee reiterated his no-first-use proposal to Pakistan and declared, "Pakistan faces no threat from India. We wish them well." On Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's offer for talks, Vajpayee merely said that India was waiting for a response to its earlier proposals for a dialogue.

India was anxious to keep the peace, he said, but Sharif's television address yesterday was "inflammatory and an unnecessary attempt to incite religious frenzy". Pakistan's tests were also projected as India-specific, he said. "This is wrong. What is needed now is restraint."

He alsowarned Pakistan to keep off Kashmir. Designs on Jammu and Kashmir would have to be met with force, he warned. The PM also made it clear that India was opposed to interference from a third party and would only solve the issue bilaterally.

Vajpayee addressed three broad issues: the timing of the tests, security environment and threat perception; relations with China; and the perceptions of the US. On the timing, he said that Pakistan's tests yesterday should set at rest questions of timing and threat perception. The danger of increased weaponisation in our neighbourhood should not be minimised though Pakistan's tests did not pose any new threat to national security as India had been monitoring the former's "clandestine nuclear programme".

India's nuclear programme was not country-specific, unlike Pakistan's, he said. "Our concerns are broader and deeper. India's security environment has become more complicated in the post-Cold War period because of acquisition of arms by our neighbours."

He also notedthat the scientists engaged in the nuclear programme could not be left in indefinite suspension and that further delay in conducting the tests would have made the exercise more complicated and difficult.On the US, Vajpayee said he was disappointed that the US had not appreciated India's security concerns (though the US had declared in 1994 that Pakistan had a nuclear bomb).

He reiterated the initiatives taken by the government to reassure the international community of its commitment to peace in the subcontinent, such as readiness to convert the voluntary moratorium to a de jure commitment, willingness to discuss the FCMT and offer of no first use to Pakistan and others bilaterally or in multi-lateral forums.

Deviating from his written text, Vajpayee switched to Hindi to appeal to the Opposition to abandon its suspicion of the government's motives for the Pokharan tests. Insisting that politics had nothing to do with the decision, he described as laughable the charge that his government had conducted thetests in preparation for mid-term elections.

He reminded MPs that the BJP had wholeheartedly supported the government when it came to national security even at the cost of the party's own political fortunes. "We did not question Indira Gandhi when the Pokharan I tests were done, nor did we ask why we were not consulted. Because such decisions are naturally kept confidential. I have said as much as I can. Don't ask me to elaborate," he said.

What the Prime Minister said