Pak cries wolf at Geneva to fool CD meeting

Pakistani Ambassador Munir Akram told the CD which includes the five declared nuclear power United States, United Kingdom, Russia, China and France, that Pakistan would retaliate should India take the extreme step.

“The question is not whether Pakistan tests or not, the question is does the world accept India as a nuclear weapons state? That is the question,” Akram told reporters. He said the question of whether India has joined the nuclear weapons club must be clarified internationally and taken into account in the nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty (NPT). The 1970 pact to which India is not party was supposedly aimed at halting the nuclear weapons race but in practice ended up dividing theworld into those who can have nuclear weapons and those who cannot.

Earlier Akram read out a Foreign Ministry statement issued in Islamabad which said Pakistan had received credible information about an Indian plan to attack its nuclear sites and threatened retaliation which he said would be “swift and massive.”

“On behalf of my government I would like to urge members of the Conference on Disarmament to counsel restraint on the government of India…they must come back from the brink,” the Pakistani diplomat said. In his address he served notice that Pakistan would not take part in any global arms negotiations until the question of India’s nuclear status was clarified in the wake of its five underground blasts.

“Until India’s nuclear status is clarified and established, Pakistan cannot be expected to negotiate or accept additional instruments for non-proliferation,” Akram said.

Indian Ambassador and chief disaramament negotiator Savitri Kunadi did not take the floor but later told reportersPakistan’s charges were baseless. “It is baseless. There is no truth in it,” the Indian diplomat said.Akram, in his remarks to journalists retorted, “If they are baseless, they (Indian authorities) should try and establish that they are baseless.”