India, Pakistan Agree Not to Hit Nuclear Plants

India and Pakistan signed an agreement Saturday not to attack each other’s nuclear facilities, a move hailed by their prime ministers as the first step toward easing their countries’ often hostile relations.

“I think that in both our countries there is a groundswell for peace,” Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto of Pakistan said. “An extremely important step has been taken toward improving relations between India and Pakistan.”

Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi of India said he hoped that his talks with Bhutto last week “will help normalize things to come.”

The two leaders, who met for eight hours, spoke to reporters after Indian and Pakistani officials signed the no-attack pact. The two nations also agreed to cultural exchanges and to end double taxation in bilateral trade.

“A momentum for peace has begun,” Bhutto said.

First Since 1972

Gandhi, turning to Bhutto, noted that the agreements are the first to be signed between India and Pakistan since 1972, when “your father and my mother” signed an accord calling for a gradual normalization of relations.

Bhutto is the daughter of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, the former Pakistani prime minister who was ousted by a coup in 1977 and hanged in 1979. Gandhi is the son of Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, who was assassinated in 1984 by her Sikh bodyguards.

The 1972 accord, signed in the Indian hill town of Simla, was meant to plot a path for improved relations after India had intervened to help East Pakistan fight for its independence from Pakistan to become Bangladesh.

Instead, mutual suspicion continued, and deepened on India’s side during the 11 years of rule in Pakistan by military President Zia ul-Haq, which ended when he was killed in a mysterious air crash last Aug. 17.

Attended Regional Summit

Gandhi arrived in Islamabad on Thursday to attend the annual summit of the seven-nation South Asia Assn. for Regional Cooperation. The summit ended Saturday with pledges to improve regional living conditions by the year 2000. Bhutto and Gandhi held two bilateral sessions during the conference.

The Bhutto-Gandhi meeting offers the hope that a new generation of leaders can ease the hostility between their nations, which have gone to war three times since gaining independence in 1947. Muslim Pakistan and predominantly Hindu India were created out of British colonial India and were partitioned along religious lines.