LONDON (National Times) – Former prime minister and PML-N supremo Nawaz Sharif on Saturday said that Pakistan is a responsible nuclear state.
While reacting to a statement of US President Joe Biden about Pakistan’s nuclear program, Nawaz Sharif said Pakistan is perfectly capable of safeguarding its national interest whilst respecting international law and practices. Our nuclear program is in no way a threat to any country, he stressed.
“Like all independent states, Pakistan reserves the right to protect its autonomy, sovereign statehood and territorial integrity.”
It merits mention that United States President Joe Biden expressed the belief that Pakistan may be one of the “most dangerous nations in the world” during an address in California while speaking about the changing global geopolitical situation.
The US president reasoned that he thought so as Pakistan has “nuclear weapons without cohesion”.
Biden’s allegations against Pakistan’s nuclear program came as he spoke about the aggressive attitudes of China and Russia. “Did anybody think we would be in a situation where China is trying to figure out its role relative to Russia and relative to India and relative to Pakistan,” Biden asked.
The US president said that he has spent more time with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping than any other head of state in the world, 68 hours of which was in person.
Referring to Jinping, Biden said that he “understands what he wants but has an enormous array of problems”.
“How do we handle that? How do we handle that relative to what’s going on in Russia? And what I think is maybe one of the most dangerous nations in the world: Pakistan. Nuclear weapons without any cohesion,” the US president said, adding that despite a lot going on, the US has a hunk of opportunities to change the dynamic in the second quarter of the 21st century.
Khurram Dastgir calls Biden’s allegations baseless
Minister for Power Khurram Dastgir Khan — a senior member of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s cabinet — termed the US president’s statement about Pakistan’s nuclear programme “baseless”.
While answering a question about President Joe Biden’s comments regarding Pakistan during a press conference today, the former defence minister said, “Pakistan s nuclear command and control system is absolutely safe which has been confirmed by international organisations many times”.
He said that the US president s doubts about Pakistan’s nukes are “completely wrong and the statement is baseless”.
