WASHINGTON, July 12: Pakistan will say ‘yes’ to a bilateral fissile material moratorium with India because its nuclear weapons programme is driven by the threat perception of its larger neighbour, says Foreign Minister Khurshid Mehmood Kasuri.

Mr Kasuri, who is currently visiting Washington, also said that the US would eventually ‘begin to see the logic’ of offering a civilian nuclear deal to Pakistan similar to the one it had reached with India.

He told a select gathering at a think tank, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, that ‘if India agrees, we are also prepared to go for a mutual reduction’ in nuclear weapons.

However, he said Pakistan would like to retain the current nuclear parity with India because in conventional weapons, it could not match New Delhi, ‘aircraft to aircraft, tank to tank … so you cannot blame us for wanting to maintain minimum deterrence.’

The foreign minister said he did not understand India’s objection to US offer to sell F-16 fighter jets to Pakistan. “We are not competing with India. They are buying weapons from every possible source.”

On Pakistan’s demand for a civilian nuclear deal with the US, he said: “Our position is well known.

“In our view a package approach would have been preferable in addressing legitimate civil nuclear needs of both India and Pakistan.

“Our case is self-evident... Since we’re already a declared nuclear power, I think it is only a matter of time, since the US is a friend of Pakistan, that it will begin to see the logic of our argument.”

He said Pakistan had asked the US for a 1000mw civilian nuclear reactor but instead of waiting for a US response, it was looking at other options to produce nuclear energy.

Pakistan, he said, was willing to assure the US that it would use the technology only for producing energy and ‘if they want, they can take back the spent fuel,’ which could be used for making weapons.

The foreign minister prefaced his speech by offering condolence for the victims of the Mumbai blasts and called on New Delhi to join Islamabad to combat ‘both Islamic and Hindu extremism.’

After his written speech on “Pakistan: promoting peace, security and development,” Mr Kasuri handled the question-answer session.

The foreign minister combined his strong condemnation of the Mumbai blasts with an appeal to India to move past confidence building measures and work to a solution to the Kashmir conflict, which he said was feeding extremism.