Pakistan has dismissed India’s call to effectively secure its nuclear weapons as “self serving”, saying New Delhi should instead work with it on establishing a “regional strategic restraint regime“.
Following Friday’s suicide attack near Pakistan Aeronautical Complex at Kamra - reportedly linked to country’s nulear weapons programme - Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao had said that India hoped the Pakistan government would “continue to take steps to effectively secure their nuclear assets“.
Responding to a question on Rao’s comments, Foreign Office spokesman Abdul Basit yesterday said, “Such remarks are evidently self serving and integral to India’s efforts to seek unilateral advantage at the cost of regional strategic stability by its feverish militarisation and working on dangerous military doctrines.
“Instead of finger pointing, India should accept our proposal for promoting a regional strategic restraint regime and work with Pakistan to promote strategic stability in South Asia,” he said.
Basit said India should “stop its opportunistic propaganda against Pakistan“.
Suggestions about the restraint regime were made to Rao during her recent meeting with her Pakistani counterpart Salman Bashir on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly session in New York, Basit said.
