GENEVA: With the international and regional security environment worsening, Pakistan has expressed concern over the “generous” supply of conventional and non-conventional weapons to India, saying it was eroding the strategic stability in South Asia.
“The regional security environment continues to deteriorate primarily because of the hegemonic policies of the largest State,” Ambassador Khalil Hashmi told a UN panel, without naming India.
The Pakistani envoy was addressing the Geneva-based Conference on Disarmament, a 65-member forum established by the international community to negotiate arm control and disarmament agreements, which began its session on Tuesday.
Ambassador Hashmi said that those hegemonic policies drew strength from the “generous” supplies of conventional and non-conventional weaponry, technology and platforms from multiple sources.
“They are also inspired by the nuclear exceptionalism afforded to this State (India) in contravention of long-standing non-proliferation principles, norms and rules,” the Pakistani envoy said in an apparent reference to the 2008 India-US civilian nuclear agreement.
“The net effects of these developments in South Asia are clear: strategic stability in the region is eroding,” he said, adding, “The largest State continues to relentlessly pursue strategic domination and operationalize dangerous doctrines.
“Even more worryingly, these developments are accelerating the pace of defiance by this State of international law, particularly the UN Security Council resolutions.”
Pakistan, he said, cannot remain oblivious to the evolving security dynamics in the immediate neighbourhood and the clear and present dangers to its security due to these policies, actions and developments.
“Pakistan will do whatever it takes to defend itself from all forms of aggression while remaining resolute in pursuing peace, development and strategic stability in South Asia, based on the universal principles of sovereign equality and equal security,” Ambassador Hashmi said.
Noting that Military capabilities were assuming a force multiplier character due to growing weaponization and integration across nuclear, outer space, cyber, conventional and A.I. domains, he said the pursuit of and advocacy for aggressive war fighting doctrines, including those for the use of nuclear weapons, was growing.
Therefore,” he said, “the conversation on nuclear disarmament can no longer ignore the mutually reinforcing relationship between various weapon systems and their collective impact on the security of states, particularly in situations of conventional and nuclear asymmetry.
“Given this state of affairs, rebuilding durable and more equitable international security architecture has become an urgent imperative.”
