Khar warns against ‘generous’ arms supplies to India

Minister of state says favours to India strain security environment; heightening risks to regional peace

GENEVA:

Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Hina Rabbani Khar voiced concern on Thursday over the “generous” supply of conventional and non-conventional weapons to India, saying it was severely straining South Asia’s strategic stability and threatening “our national security”.

“The largest country in the region continues to be a beneficiary of nuclear exceptionalism, in violation of established non-proliferation norms and principles,” Khar told a high-level UN panel via a video-link from Islamabad.

“This country also remains a net recipient of generous supplies of advanced conventional and non-conventional weapons, technologies and platforms,” the minister of state told the panel, without naming India.

Khar addressed the Geneva-based Conference on Disarmament, a 65-member forum established by the international community to negotiate arms control and disarmament agreements, which began its session on Thursday.

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The minister said that the favours being done to India were straining the security environment; heightening the risks to peace and stability in the region; reinforcing a sense of impunity in the recipient state and freezing pathways to conflict resolution through peaceful means.

She emphasised that one-third of humanity that lived in South Asia deserved investments in sustainable peace and development. “Even as we adhere to and call for restraint and responsibility, we cannot ignore threats to our security,” she said.

The minister stated Pakistan had a clear vision and a policy for peaceful neighbourhood on the basis of universally-agreed principles; sovereign equality and undiminished security for all states; no threat or use of force and pacific settlement of disputes.

“We will pursue the path of peace, development and strategic stability in South Asia and beyond, I can assure you of that,” she told delegates. She added that the Conference on Disarmament was an indispensable part of the global security architecture and the disarmament machinery.

Noting with concerns the decades-long impasse in the conference, Khar said its ability to start negotiations on its agenda items remained contingent on the policy priorities of its members, their threat perceptions and their core national security concerns.

About some members’ insistence on pursuing self-serving and cost-free proposals such as banning the future production of fissile materials, she said the subject should be discussed in all its dimensions.

In this regard, Khar proposed a ‘Fissile Material Treaty’ seeking to craft a new mandate for the treaty, stipulating explicitly in its scope the fissile material stocks, and applicable equally to all the states.

The minister proposed that the conference must contribute to and promote security at international and regional levels; play its role in creating conditions that were responsive to the principle of inalienable right to equal security by all states.

She also stressed the need for the conference to adhere to disarmament measures in an equitable and balanced manner; while urging its members to refrain from grant of special exemptions and by fulfilling their longstanding disarmament obligations.

“It [the Conference on Disarmament] must be enabled to overcome its decades-long impasse by patient and constructive engagement,” Khar continued. Pakistan, she added, remained committed to the goal of a nuclear weapons free world.