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Waiver to India by NSG a discrimination
Rasheed Khalid
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Islamabad
The Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) created discrimination between haves and have-nots. Now the world is asking Pakistan to stop producing fissile material meaning that they are not recognising it as a nuclear weapon state, said Federal Minister for Interior Rehman Malik.
He was speaking on the last day of a three-day International Conference on ‘Fissile Material Treaty: Possibility and Prospects’ organised by the South Asian Strategic Stability Institute (SASSI) here on Tuesday. Ayesha Naveed was the stage secretary, while Maria Sultan, director-general of SASSI, chaired the last session.
Rehman Malik said that discrimination is hated all over the world, but the Nuclear Suppliers Group committed it by giving waiver to India. He said that Pakistan over these years experienced discrimination at the hands of major powers. He said that the regional instability forced Pakistan to acquire nuclear weapons.
He said that there is insecurity on Pakistan’s eastern and western borders. He said that Pakistan is facing terrorism and Talibanisation. He said: “If we can produce nuclear weapons then we know how to protect them. Our nuclear programme is for peaceful purposes and it is in safe hands.”
He said that concessions given to India should be extended to Pakistan also as India will make weapons from the reactors it declares as military ones. He demanded that Pakistan should be treated equally.
He said that Pakistanis love peace and prosperity. The 9/11 gave birth to the culture of suicide attacks and the emerging world destroyed peace in the region.
Mark Hibbs from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace said that India will have 300-400 nuclear weapons in ten years, whereas the Indo-US deal will give 50-60 more weapons to it. He said that right now Pakistan has more weapons than those held by India. He proposed a FMT that locks in India’s plutonium and highly enriched uranium production.
He said that other CD parties want clarification from Pakistan about its views on verification, whereas Pakistan requires robust FMT verification. He observed that India could cross a Pakistani red line and provoke nuclear war but the Cold-Start Doctrine (CSD) was in part prompted by low-intensity violence and terrorism in Kashmir and India. He said that under the CSD, terrorist attack or low-intensity violence could provoke a nuclear crisis. He said that Pakistan had influence over this violence, however, nuclear crisis could happen regardless of whether Pakistan was implicated.
Hibbs said that legitimate security needs of Pakistan must be accommodated by others. He said that we drew lessons from the Cold War that without political will, no de-escalation, no end to arms race, hence no FMT. He said that CBMs are no substitute for political will but may help to de-escalate if they address the Indian conventional superiority. He said that India-Pakistan were approaching the Cold War environment, which gave rise to massive destructive power. Calling for reinvigorating Pakistan Strategic Restraint Regime proposal, he said that Pakistan might optimise resource allocation priorities with 200 weapons to defend against India. He said that no Pakistani government could afford to shut down Khushab and Kahuta plants.
Ambassador Li-Changhe, vice-president of the China Arms Control and Disarmament Association, said that from the beginning, Chinese belief had been to use nuclear arms only against a nuclear attack as a means of deterrence.
He said that Beijing will never be first to start a nuclear war and will never use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear weapon states or nuclear weapon-free zones. He said that his country will never engage in nuclear arms race and will never use nukes to make up for its deficiency in conventional capabilities.
Dr Zafar Nawaz Jaspal, adviser to SASSI, said that the assessment of nuclear optimists about the nuclear weapons impressive contribution in constructing strategic stability is severely under stress in the 21st century as the new military and combat concepts and theories such as control of space and occupation of space have been attracting the attention of the makers of modern strategy of the great powers.
He said that the danger of weaponisation of outer space is increasing with each passing day while China and Russia introduced an actual space arms control accord namely ‘Treaty on the Prevention of the Placement of Weapons in Outer Space, the Threat or Use of Force against Outer Space Objects’ (PPWT). He said the existing agreements, proposals and initiatives relevant to the prevention of an arms race in outer space, including the weaponisation of outer space, are not substantial. Therefore, further measures should be examined for a comprehensive, effective and verifiable legally-binding international treaty for outer space to ban space-based weapons.
Dr Zafarullah Koreshi, dean of the Faculty of Engineering at Air University, said that lack of international consensus on FMCT is consistent with realities as global security environment places major responsibility on the USA and Russia. He opined that until START is real and transparent, FMCT or FMT does not make sense. He said that some established nuclear powers are playing active role in reshaping the world, disturbing the international norms of justice and equality for all peoples of the world. He said that new nuclear weapon states (NWS) face regional compulsions and are driven to nuclear technology by energy and security concerns. He said that Pakistan’s national security would be severely compromised if it moves towards the FMCT in the present global and regional scenario.
Colonel Zawar Abidi said that international community would not accept another exceptionalism of the NPT membership. He said that such an approach diminished the prospects and added many challenges to the conclusion of the FMT. He said that a treaty which does not meet the basic requirement as given in the UN General Assembly Resolution 48/75 of 1993 and which is also not futuristic cannot be logically negotiated.
Mansur Ahmad, an academician from the Department of Defence and Strategic Studies, Quaid-i-Azam University, said that as of 2010, Pakistan’s modest fissile stocks stand around 2.7 tons of weapon-grade highly enriched uranium and about 100 kgs weapon-grade plutonium from its 50 MW Khushab-I Reactor. This acute asymmetry in existing stocks of fissile materials and the obvious expansion in India’s future fissile material production capacity represent a direct threat to the Pakistan’s security, he said.
Coupled with India’s plans to develop a 400 triad-based nuclear arsenal and a BMD, he said, the strategic instability in South Asia is likely to increase to dangerous levels which may threaten the credibility of nuclear deterrence in the region. Under such circumstances, he said, Pakistan is left with no option but to develop its own plutonium production capability further to enhance the credibility of its minimum deterrence and build an assured second strike capability. Humayun Khan and Khalid Banuri also spoke on the occasion.
Waiver to India by NSG a discrimination
how many times this has been discussed?????
