India minister’s statement on no-first use ‘a threat to peace’

islamabad — The Foreign Office on Friday said that statement of Indian defence minister on why India cannot use nuclear weapons first was a “manifestation of India’s double speak and a threat to region’s peace and security”.

“Such statements from a person no less than defence minister of a country that has repeatedly and constantly heightened tensions with aggressive posture is a threat to regional and global peace,” Foreign Office spokesman Nafees Zakaria said at a weekly Press briefing here.

Indian Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar had stated that “instead of saying that India won’t use nuclear weapons first, should say it is a responsible nuclear power”.

Zakaria said India’s claim of ‘no-first use of nuclear weapons’ could not substitute to the restraint measures as proposed in Pakistan’s standing offer of ‘Strategic Restraint Regime’.

“Pakistan has long maintained that India’s ambiguous no first use declaration is not verifiable and amounts to nothing,” he said.

The spokesman said that Pakistan had time and again cautioned the international community of “Indian tendency towards adventurism”.

He said in this backdrop, signing of nuclear deals by some countries was a matter of concern as “it had only reinforced arrogance and belligerence to the Indian conduct in the region and beyond”.

He mentioned that India’s ‘atrocities’ and worst crimes in Indian-controlled Kashmir and its non-stop ceasefire violations at the Line of Control and Working Boundary also testified to this fact. — APP

Pakistan has long maintained that India’s ambiguous no-first use declaration is not verifiable and amounts to nothing Nafees Zakaria, Foreign Office spokesman