UNITED NATIONS, Oct 11: Pakistan on Tuesday assured the international community that it “does want to enter into a strategic and conventional arms race, (in South Asia)” but declared “we will do whatever is necessary to preserve the credibility of our minimum defensive deterrence level.”
“We are assessing the impact of recent developments on fissile material production in our region. This could impact our position on the fissile material treaty”, said Ambassador Masood Khan, Pakistan’s Permanent Representative to the UN Geneva on Thematic discussion on nuclear weapons at the UNGA first committee.
Without directly referring to the proposed nuclear deal between US and India, Mr Khan underscored that the international community and the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) should also build firewalls that should prevent the spill-over of nuclear technology obtained for peaceful purposed into military applications.
“Under its overarching concept of Strategic Restraint Regime, Pakistan has been pursuing with India a negotiated settlement of the issue of Jammu and Kashmir, nuclear and missile restraint, and a balance in conventional forces”, Mr Khan told the delegates.
“Pakistan has been holding consultations with our Indian counterparts on security concepts and doctrines to develop CBMs in the areas of communication, risk reduction, and strategic stability”, he dded.
“The two sides have signed an agreement on pre-notification of flight-testing of ballistic missiles and operationalised a hotline link between the foreign secretaries of the two countries. We have also held discussions on a draft text of an agreement on reducing the risk from accidents relating to nuclear weapons”, Mr Khan said.
He told the international community that we should also give attention to reconciling nuclear reality within the global non-proliferation regime. Ways should be explored to normalise the relationship between the NPT and non-NPT nuclear weapon states. For quite some time, it has been suggested that the NPT could develop an additional protocol to resolve this issue.
Mr Khan said Pakistan subscribes to the objectives of the NPT, it is a nuclear weapon state. However, he added “we cannot be expected to adhere to the treaty as a non-nuclear weapon state.”
Saying that Pakistan is observing a unilateral moratorium on further nuclear tests, Mr Khan stressed we cannot agree to a moratorium on the production of fissile material even as others are being aided in ways that will vastly expand their fissile material stocks.
