agreement to withdraw more troops in the desert area that was signed the same month. While negotiating the withdrawal accord, India vowed to proceed with Brasstacks, asserting that Pakistan had no reason to feel provoked. India did delay the beginning of the last stage of the operation until the following week, while the latest withdrawal agreement was being negotiated. To prove its intentions were peaceful, India took the unusual step of inviting diplomats and journalists to observe the operation separately. Pakistani Foreign Service officers, senior diplomats and statesmen were those who were invited. According to an unnamed Western diplomat, "This was not a third-world army. This was a modern army, fully competent for any mission, easily as good as the Chinese, the Koreans or the French." Pakistan's President Zia visited India in February 1987, having been invited to see a cricket match between the two countries. Zia's estimation was that he and Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi could meet quite cordially, but could not agree on substantive issues. Effects and legacy According to the Indian Army, Brasstacks was only an exercise and not supposed to be a provocative one. The media, particularly the Western media, was involved after this and intense diplomatic manoeuvres followed preventing any further escalation in hostilities. On multiple occasions, General Sunderji maintained that: "This was, is and always has been a training exercise. I can't answer why there have been misperceptions about it in some quarters." India repeatedly accused Pakistan of continuing scientific research on atomic bombs; Pakistan continued to sharply reject the claims. A few days later, A. Q. Khan also rejected any statements issued regarding atomic bomb development, and has since said "his comments were taken out of context." The real motives behind the exercise remain disputed. In 1999, a former senior Indian Army officer, Lieutenant-General P. N. Hoon, remarked that the operation had mobilized the entire Indian Army to Pakistan's eastern border. He further notes that, Brasstacks was a plan to build up a situation for a fourth war with Pakistan. Western scholars have theorized that Brasstacks was an accidental crisis, caused by Pakistan's misinterpretation of an inadvertently provocative Indian Army exercise. Robert Art suggests that, "General Sunderji's strategy was to provoke Pakistan's response and this would provide India with an excuse to implement existing contingency plans to go on to offensive against Pakistan and take out its atomic bomb projects in preventive