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Pakistan urges talks on nuclear disarmament, instead of pushing for limited goals |
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UNITED NATIONS, Oct 21 (APP): Pakistan has called for redoubling efforts to revive a global consensus that ensures elimination of nuclear weapons “within a specified time frame,” while meeting the security concerns of all states. “We must strive to evolve a rules-based, equitable and non-discriminatory international order that must pursue a comprehensive disarmament agenda,” Pakistani delegate Khalil Hashmi told the General Assembly’s First Committee, which deals with disarmament and international security matters.
Speaking in a thematic debate on nuclear weapons, Hashmi stressed the meed for commencing negotiations on the larger issue of nuclear disarmament instead of pushing for a treaty to ban production of fissile material used as fuel for atomic weapons, which, he said, was not even a non proliferation measure.
Asserting
that eliminating nuclear weapons must be achieved by ensuring equal
security for all States, he said that the efforts of major
nuclear-weapon States had focused mainly on areas where their own
security would not be compromised, such as by eliminating biological and
chemical weapons, or by banning nuclear tests and fissile material.
The Pakistani delegate said that some of the major Powers promoted a fissile
material cut-off treaty (FMCT) only after producing so much of that
material that they did not need any more. But no effort had been made to
eliminate nuclear weapons or to pursue genuine nuclear disarmament.
Instead of half measures, he said, or disowning obligations to disarm and advocating a treaty banning only the future production of fissile material which was
not even a non-proliferation measure there should be a reduction of
existing fissile material stocks as well, which would be a genuine step
towards the elimination of nuclear weapons.
The search for security
was the main driving force for the acquisition and development of
nuclear weapons, he said. Because nuclear arsenals were seen as the
ultimate weapons, they were therefore considered the ultimate guarantor
of security.
But the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki had demonstrated the horror of such attacks, which were an atrocity, he said. Despite high-sounding and moralistic assertions, the Pakistani delegate said, the fact was that nuclear weapons remained integral to strategic doctrines of
military alliances and also provided extended deterrence to
non-nuclear-weapon States that were members of military alliances.
Pakistan,
he added, recognized that nuclear disarmament would not happen
overnight or even in a lifetime, however the effort to eliminate those
weapons must start now.
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Presidential address to the joint sitting of parliament |
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