SEOUL, Sept 29: Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz reiterated here on Thursday Pakistan’s commitment to nuclear non-proliferation and its opposition to export of nuclear material, but said it was not opposed to peaceful uses of nuclear energy under the IAEA ambit.

He also said that Pakistan supported a proposal for nuclear weapons-free Korean peninsula.

The premier elaborated the country’s nuclear policy while responding to questions from the Korean press at a breakfast meeting and in his address at the Institute of Foreign Affairs and National Security on the second day of his visit to this Pacific Rim country.

Mr Aziz said Pakistan believed that a nuclear-free Korean peninsula was essential for peace and supported the six-nation initiative in this direction.

He told a questioner that Pakistan did not have any more contacts with North Korea and did not have much knowledge about its nuclear programme. It was a ‘closed chapter’ as far as Pakistan is concerned, he said.

On the question of Iran’s standoff on the nuclear issue with the West and the IAEA, Mr Aziz said the “current situation vis-a-vis Iran ought to be handled through IAEA and ought to be handled in a way to settle the matter peacefully. We are also opposed to use of force and believe that the European initiative that started some time ago is the best way of taking this process forward.”

Pakistan, he said, had always been in favour of nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. Pakistan had never pursued the acquisition of nuclear weapons or for that matter chemical or biological weapons, he said.

Prime Minister Aziz said that Pakistan’s deterrence was exclusively for defence and that Islamabad had offered New Delhi a strategic restraint regime with the objective of avoiding arms race in conventional and strategic weapons.

He said Pakistan was engaged with India in peace process and was trying to solve the core issue of Kashmir peacefully. Improved relations between Pakistan and India through the composite dialogue, he added, would provide a unique opportunity to resolve the Kashmir dispute in a manner acceptable to all three parties: Pakistan, India and the Kashmiris.

Prime Minister Aziz referred to Pakistan’s relations with Afghanistan and said that his government supported President Hamid Karzai and the electoral process there. “A strong and stable Afghanistan is good for its people, its economy and all its neighbours.”

Answering a question about the ongoing military operations in tribal areas, Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz said that some 80,000 troops and heliborne weaponry were being used to prevent the trickling down of undesirable elements across the border. Afghan and Nato forces were monitoring the border on their side while Pakistani troops were doing the same on this side.

He said Pakistani security forces were constantly engaged in wiping out terrorism activities along the Pakistan-Afghan border, which was in the interest of both countries and the region as well.

Pakistan, he said, was opposed to terrorism in all its forms and reminded the audience of the country’s role in international coalition for combating terrorism. He said that deprivation and lack of resolution of various issues was the cause of terrorism and extremism. He said it was wrong to associate it with any faith or geographical region. “It is wrong to link it with a particular faith,” he stressed.

Citing the examples of Africa, Europe, and America, the prime minister said that terrorism and extremism existed in all parts of the world in different kinds and manifestations. Therefore, he added, linking terrorism and extremism with Islam was an incorrect notion.

Mr Aziz supported the just demand of the Palestinian people for statehood.

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