Pakistan voices concerns at growing Indian involvement in arms transfer

Tehmina Janjua says the transfers have potential of fueling instability and jeopardising regional balance

In an apparent reference to India, Pakistan on Friday voiced concern over the growing transfers of conventional armaments, saying it has every potential of fueling instability and jeopardising the delicate regional balance.

"We remain concerned over the growing transfers of conventional armaments especially in volatile regions that are inconsistent with the imperatives of maintaining peace, security and stability," Pakistan’s permanent representative to the United Nations in Geneva Ambassador Tehmina Janjua said.

"South Asia is a sensitive region where one state's military spending grossly and vastly out-shadows all others," she added.



"The policy of dual standards towards South Asia, based on narrow strategic, political and commercial considerations, must be eschewed." Pakistan, she said, was committed to the establishment of strategic stability in South Asia, which included an element of conventional force balance. "It [Pakistan] neither wants, nor is it engaged in an arms race in the region,” the envoy remarked.

Pakistan, the envoy added, has developed the necessary legislative, regulatory, enforcement and institutional mechanisms to address the range of issues relating to conventional arms including small arms and light weapons. "We are taking additional measures to strengthen the enforcement regime, which covers imports and licensing,” Janjua said.

She further said that Pakistan shared the concerns about the acquisition and use by non-state actors and terrorists of small arms and Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs).

Janjua further stressed that efforts to eliminate nuclear weapons must not give way to an unworkable imbalance of conventional weapons similar to those that had triggered two world wars.



The envoy pointed out that spending on conventional arms had surpassed $1.7 trillion, adding that the total budget of the United Nations was around three per cent of world military expenditures. Thirty-three times more money was being spent on fueling and exacerbating conflicts than on preventing them, she maintained.

"The utility of a partial approach that separates motivations for arms production from the controls of their trade and transfers will be limited at best. As a result, these weapons will continue to fuel conflicts, destabilise states and societies, inflicting enormous pain and suffering to humanity," the envoy stressed.