NEW YORK: Pakistan has called for evolving a rules-based, equitable and non-discriminatory international order to promote nuclear disarmament that strengthen the non-proliferation regime by shunning double standards.
Speaking in the General Assembly’s First Committee, which deals with disarmament and international security matters, Pakistani delegate Usman Jadoon said that such an order should also limit and rationalize the stockpiles of conventional weapons, address the security concerns of all states and extend negative security assurances to non-nuclear weapon states.
Jadoon, who was participating in a thematic debate on nuclear weapons, said that double standards and discrimination in the South Asia region are aggravating the tenuous strategic stability and facilitating the “hegemonic ambitions and aggressive designs of one regional state that is engaged in a relentless pursuit of strategic domination”. “While the international and regional security environment continues to worsen, the fulfillment of nuclear disarmament obligations at the global level is being evaded by constantly shifting the goalpoststowards additional non-proliferation measures,” he said.
Regretting to note the failure of negotiating a fissile material cut-off convention, he said: “A treaty which only results in a cut-off in the future production of fissile material would jeopardize Pakistan’s security and bring no added value to the cause of nuclear disarmament.”
Such a treaty, the Pakistani delegate said, will undermine strategic stability at the global and regional levels by freezing the existing asymmetries in fissile material stocks.
“It is high time that we move towards the development of a new consensus on this issue that addresses those asymmetries.”
Pakistan remains committed to the goal of complete nuclear disarmament in a universal, verifiable and non-discriminatory manner, he said, adding that for meaningful progress, “the underlying security concerns of states need to be addressed in earnest”.
Among those concerns, Jadoon pointed out the possession of disproportionately excessive conventional military capabilities, induction of new destabilizing technologies, aggressive doctrines and long-unresolved disputes. “Nuclear disarmament, therefore, needs to be pursued in a comprehensive and holistic manner,” he added.
