Pak’s N-capabilities available under pact with Saudi Arabia: Minister

Pakistan has declared that its nuclear capabilities will be available under the new Strategic Mutual Defence Agreement with Saudi Arabia, sharply raising the stakes of a pact already seen as a game-changer in the Gulf and South Asian security.

“We have armed forces that are battle-hardened....Our military has been tested recently...What we have, our capabilities, will absolutely be available under this pact,” Defence Minister Khawaja Asif said in an interview with a Pakistani news channel, underscoring the breadth of Islamabad’s commitment to Riyadh.

Since Pakistan became a nuclear state, “not a single agency like the IAEA or even the West has ever challenged us being a responsible nuclear power,” Asif insisted.

He said Pakistan’s nuclear installations were open to inspections. “We are an abiding nuclear power. We get its certificates. We don’t do any kind of violation,” he said.

The minister also left the door open for more Arab nations to join the framework. “I cannot prematurely answer this, but I will definitely say the doors are not closed,” Asif said.

He said he had long called for a NATO-like security arrangement in the Islamic world. “I think it is a fundamental right of the countries and people here, particularly the Muslim population, to together defend their region, countries and nations,” he said.

The defence pact, signed in Riyadh during Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s state visit, commits both countries to treat an attack on one as an attack on the other. Saudi Defence Minister Prince Khalid bin Salman had hailed it as creating “one front against any aggressor, always and forever.”

Experts say Asif’s explicit reference to Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal significantly alters the equation, even though the pact’s text itself did not spell out nuclear provisions. Analysts warn that any move to extend a “nuclear umbrella” to Riyadh could destabilise regional deterrence frameworks and invite global scrutiny.