There was no edition of the newspaper on Dec 6, 1969 on account of Jumatul Wida. The following excerpt is from the previous day’s edition.

RAWALPINDI: Pakistan wants not only a total ban on the production and use of all chemical and bacteriological weapons but also the destruction of the existing stocks as a “necessary step” towards world peace.

Pakistan is understood to have informed the US authorities that while it welcomed President Nixon’s announcement renouncing bacteriological warfare and the pledge that the US would not be the first to use lethal or incapacitating chemical weapons, Pakistan felt that as long as these weapons continued to be manufactured and stockpiled, they would be a constant source of danger.

The American Ambassador in Pakistan had sent a copy of President Nixon’s statement, made in Washington on Nov 25, with a covering letter to the Foreign Secretary of Pakistan, [who] in reply thanked the American Ambassador for sending the statement and welcomed President Nixon’s statement as “an initiative towards peace”. In the letter, the Foreign Secretary also explained Pakistan’s position and expressed the hope that the change in the US policy would lead to effective measures for the total ban for which Pakistan stands.

Published in Dawn, December 6th, 2019