Author: IANS
Publication: Economic
Times
Date: July 26, 2000
A LEADING Russian newspaper
has called Pakistan more dangerous than so-called rogue states, noting
the reluctance of the country's leaders to rule out the use of nuclear
arms.
The respected Moscow
daily, Kommersant, in a front page article, noted that Pakistani deputy
foreign minister Inam ul-Haque, during his visit to Germany, publicly said
"Islamabad cannot provide any guarantee" that it would not use nuclear
weapons if its security was under threat and that his country was ready
to use nuclear arms to repel any aggression."
"The warning is specifically
addressed to India, he had said openly. The sensational public statement
has drawn the world nearer to a nuclear war, Kommersant said.
Pakistan has made it
clear it would use nuclear weapons even if it is attacked only with conventional
arms. While Pakistan's nuclear threat had been veiled in the past
with its leaders saying "all available means" would be used to repulse
any attack, Haque's statement has left no room for doubt about Islamabad's
intentions," the paper said.
During India-Pakistan
wars Islamabad had misled the international community and the Kargil conflict
in 1999 was clearly masterminded and engineered by Pakistan, though it
pointed an accusing finger, as usual, towards New Delhi to confuse the
world, it said.
The paper asked who could
provide a guarantee that Pakistan would not provoke such a conflict again
in the future, pushing the world to the brink of nuclear war.
Haque tried to vindicate
his country's nuclear policy by arguing it was based on Nato's first strike
nuclear doctrine during the Cold War as a check against a possible Soviet
tank attack on Western Europe.
He called his country's
nuclear arms "weapons of containment" as Nato had called its nuclear arsenal
during the Cold War period. - IANS
