India calls for IAEA oversight of Pakistan's nuclear weapons

NEW DELHI (Reuters) -India's Defence Minister Rajnath Singh said on Thursday that the International Atomic Energy Agency should take charge of Pakistan's nuclear weapons, days after the nuclear-armed neighbours ended their worst military conflict in nearly three decades.

Fighting broke out last week after India struck what it said were "terrorist camps" in Pakistan in retaliation for an attack backed by Pakistan in Indian Kashmir last month that killed 26 men.

Islamabad had denied the allegations and both countries sent missiles and drones into each other's airspace before they reached a truce on Saturday.

"Are nuclear weapons safe in the hands of such an irresponsible and rogue nation?" Singh said while addressing soldiers in Indian Kashmir's summer capital Srinagar. "I believe that Pakistan's nuclear weapons should be taken under the supervision of IAEA."

Pakistan's foreign ministry condemned the remarks.

They show India's "insecurity and frustration" about Pakistan's "effective defence and deterrence against Indian aggression through conventional means", the ministry said in a post on X.

The IAEA is a Vienna-based U.N. watchdog which monitors nuclear programmes to ensure they are peaceful.

India and Pakistan became nuclear powers after they conducted tit-for-tat nuclear tests in 1998 and their decades-old animosity has made the region - the world's most populous - one of its most dangerous nuclear flashpoints.

The latest military conflict between the South Asian neighbours spiralled on Saturday and there were fears that nuclear arsenals might come into play as Pakistan's military said a top body overseeing its nuclear weapons would meet.

But the Pakistani defence minister said no such meeting was scheduled.

DISPUTE SETTLED

Elsewhere, U.S. President Donald Trump said the dispute had settled, after he urged the two countries to focus on trade instead of war.

"I hope I don't walk out of here in two days... to find out that is not settled, but I think it is settled and we talked to them about trade, let's do trade instead of doing war," Trump told U.S. troops at a base in Qatar.

Trump was the first to announce the ceasefire on Saturday, indicating it was clinched due to Washington's diplomacy and pressure.

Pakistan has thanked Washington for its involvement but the foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment on his latest statement.

There was no response from New Delhi on Thursday either. The Indian foreign ministry said this week the issue of trade did not come up in talks with Washington and that the understanding to stop the fighting was reached directly with Islamabad.

During a phone call between the armed forces of Pakistan and India on Thursday, both sides agreed to extend the ceasefire until Sunday, Pakistani Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar told the upper house of the parliament.

The Indian army said in a statement that both India and Pakistan had decided to continue confidence-building measures to lower the alert level.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Monday that India would strike at terrorist hideouts across the border again if there were new attacks on India and would not be deterred by what he called Islamabad's "nuclear blackmail".

Pakistan rejected Modi's statements as being "provocative and inflammatory assertions", saying they represented a dangerous escalation.

(Reporting by Surbhi Misra, Tanvi Mehta and Shivam Patel in New Delhi, Nayera Abdallah and Gram Slattery in Doha; Asif Shahzad in Islamabad; writing by Sakshi Dayal and Sudipto Ganguly; Editing by YP Rajesh, William Maclean and Ed Osmond)