US tells Pak to restrain N-programme

Washington, August 28

The US has asked Pakistan and all other nuclear-armed countries to exercise “restraint” in expanding their nuclear capabilities after two American think-tanks said Pakistan could have the third largest stockpile of atomic weapons in about a decade. “We continue to urge all nuclear-capable states, including Pakistan, to exercise restraint regarding furthering their nuclear capabilities," State Department spokesman John Kirby said yesterday.

He was responding to a question on a latest report by two top American think-tank, which said in a decade or so, Pakistan would have more than 350 nuclear weapons that would be third largest stockpile of nuclear weapons after the US and Russia.

The 48-page report —  A Normal Nuclear Pakistan — by two renowned scholars Tom Dalton and Michael Krepon of Stimson Center and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace says the growth path of the country's nuclear arsenal, enabled by existing infrastructure, goes well beyond the assurances of credible minimal deterrence provided by its officials and analysts after testing nuclear devices. The report said Pakistan would retain its capabilities for the foreseeable future as a necessary deterrent against perceived existential threats from India.

“At this juncture, Pakistan’s military leadership in Rawalpindi can choose to accept success in achieving a strategic deterrent against India — a nuclear force posture sufficient to prevent limited nuclear exchanges and a major conventional war," it said.

“Alternatively, it can choose to continue to compete with India in the pursuit of full spectrum deterrence, which would entail open-ended nuclear requirements against targets both near and far from Pakistan. These choices would lead Pakistan to two starkly different nuclear futures and places in the global nuclear order," the report added. — PTI