Pakistan urges steps to offset threats to regional, int'l security

'Responsibility of states with larger military capabilities in promoting agreements of undiminished security for all'

Reaffirming that international peace and security depended on stability at regional levels, Pakistan has called for the preservation of balance in the defence capabilities of states at the lowest level of armaments and military forces.

Speaking in a thematic debate in the United Nations General Assembly’s First Committee – which deals with disarmament and international security issues – Ambassador Khalil Hashmi underscored the special responsibility of states with larger military capabilities in promoting agreements for regional security and undiminished security for all.

“Pakistan has continued to advance these principles and proposed bilateral or regional initiatives that build confidence, reduce risks, and conform to the cardinal principle of equal and undiminished security for all,” the ambassador said.

Hashmi, who is Pakistan’s permanent representative to the UN offices in Geneva, drew attention to new technologies inducting new levels of sophistication to existing weapons and their means of delivery.

“Emerging technologies are outpacing existing norms on Earth, in outer space and in the cyber domain”, the Pakistani envoy stated.

They afford new means of waging war, he added, cautioning that some troubling developments increase the prospect of symmetric and asymmetric responses.

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Noting that Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems (LAWS) and cyberweapons represent a substantial risk, Hashmi warned that, faced with the possibility of being overwhelmed by LAWS, states possessing weapons of mass destruction will be reluctant to give them up, while other states will seek to acquire them.

“Given such dangers for regional and global safety, the international community must develop commensurate norms, rules, and laws to control and regulate them in all their dimensions,” he maintained.

“The risks and dangers are too grave to be ignored,” Hashmi warned.

Last week Hashmi, while speaking at the General Assembly’s First Committee stressed the need for a new order to counter increasing challenges stemming from deep divisions in approaches, perspectives, and priorities.

"Political and military tensions, strategic asymmetries, and nuclear dangers are growing and many of these troubling trends are manifest in South Asia," he added.

Referring to India’s arms build-up, the permanent envoy said that the largest state, driven by its pursuit of regional hegemony and aided by generous supplies of conventional and non-conventional weaponry, continued to operationalise dangerous doctrines.