Pakistan vowed on Tuesday to work to prevent non-nuclear states from gaining the technology that would put them on the path to acquiring nuclear weapons — even though both Islamabad and neighbor New Delhi have defied non-proliferation treaties to become competing nuclear powers.
The pledge was delivered by Sartaj Aziz, adviser to Pakistan’s prime minister on foreign affairs, at a multi-nation conference on non-proliferation in Islamabad, attended by representatives of South and Central Asia, as well as China and Russia.
Pakistan is signatory to the 13-year-old UN resolution aimed at curbing the spread of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons, with a particular emphasis on preventing non-state actors from getting their hands on massively destructive technology as well as materials.
When India started down the nuclear road by launching its program in the early 1970s, Pakistan was quick to follow. The tensions between the two countries — neither of which is a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Agreement — have raised the specter of a nuclear confrontation between the two hostile neighbors.
Aziz, the prime minister’s adviser, told participants at the Islamabad conference that Pakistan has implemented regulatory precautions to avoid siphoning off technology into the wrong hands.
The international community has expressed fears militants could lay their hands on nuclear and other destructive materials, particularly as various Al-Qaeda-linked and other militant groups and the rival Daesh group are still able to stage large-scale attacks in both Pakistan and neighboring Afghanistan.
Pakistan has come under sanctions in the past because of its nuclear weapons program and as a result has run into shortages of spare parts for its nuclear reactors that provide energy.
It has also been critical of US support for India’s inclusion in the Nuclear Suppliers Group, which devises guidelines for nuclear exports and nuclear-related exports.
The two-day conference also includes representatives of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons and Interpol.
A Pakistani government official meanwhile said that representatives of 23 Asian countries talked about creating a regional block similar to the EU.
The chairman of Pakistan’s upper house of the Parliament, Raza Rabbani, addressed the gathering on Tuesday.
He urged the participants to take steps to ensure “that the destiny of Asia must not be directed by the capitalist western” states.
However, with huge rivalries among the countries of the continent, the possibility of an Asian bloc similar to the EU is remote.
India and Afghanistan have both sent envoys to the gathering, which comes amid increasingly tense relations the two of them have with Pakistan. Ramzan Sajid, a Parliament spokesman, said the Islamabad conference is likely to suggest the formation of an Asian Parliamentary Assembly.

Source: Arab News