SINGAPORE: Pakistan on Sunday defended its nuclear weapons programme by putting the blame on India.
Referring to India as "somebody else," General Ehsan-ul-Haq, Chairman of Pakistan's Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee (JCSC), said at a plenary session of the Asia Security Summit here that Islamabad "did not introduce nuclear weapons into South Asia."
When a participant asked him about A. Q. Khan's clandestine nuclear arms proliferation activities, Gen. Ehsan-ul-Haq described these as "a sordid tale." Maintaining that "decisive" action was initiated against A. Q. Khan, despite his status in Pakistan as "a hero" of its nuclear arms programme, the JCSC Chairman sought to present "another story" about the country's strategic choice.
"We did not siphon off nuclear materials from internationally provided nuclear facilities. Somebody else did that. We didn't re-test nuclear weapons in South Asia in 1998. Somebody else did that. We didn't test nuclear weapons even for 24 years after 1974. And, even before 1974, [we] kept on drawing the attention [of the international community] to what was about to happen. We have [had] some legitimate security concern."
Describing the situation in 1974, he said: "Pakistan had been divided only three years earlier through the use of force and foreign intervention. At that point in time, a `Smiling Buddha' comes into the world. A nuclear test is described as `Smiling Buddha.' So, what do you do about it?"
Speaking to The Hindu after the plenary session, Gen. Ehsan-ul-Haq said he did not mention India by name to maintain the sanctity of the summit "atmosphere." He pointed out that Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee did not refer to Pakistan at all during Saturday's plenary on `India: A rising global player.' Asked why Islamabad was harping on the past instead of looking to the future on the India-Pakistan scene, he said: "There has been significant improvement" since 2004. Maintaining that the two should move beyond the "atmospherics" of confidence-building measures, he said the effort now should not be to "build up CBMs on top of an underlying core dispute - Kashmir."
When contacted, Mr. Mukherjee said: "Why India went for 1998 [nuclear] tests is known to the whole world. It is known to us. What Pakistan did after that is known to everybody. So, what is the point in raking up this issue of known facts? We are not in a debating society."
The three-day summit, organised by the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies, ended later in the day.
