The US National Security Adviser James Jones acknowledged the fact that Pakistan was a Nuclear power. The status was attained despite Nuclear sanctions and in spite of major sanctions placed on Pakistan for a decade. Even now, if one were to believe the reporting of Sy Hersh, the US is trying to snatch the Nuclear bombs that Pakistan possesses.
While many in Pakistan think of General Jones statements as seminal—the fact of the matter is that it doesn’t matter what Mr. Jones thinks. He can’t even win a war in Afghanistan.
Pakistan has ‘enormous responsibilities within the community of nations that have nuclear weapons’: White House National Security Advisor James Jones told reporters. —File photo
WASHINGTON: US National Security Adviser James Jones said on Friday that Pakistan was a member of the community of nations that had nuclear weapons and was well aware of its responsibilities in this regard.
‘Pakistan is a nuclear state and has enormous responsibilities within the community of nations that have nuclear weapons,’ said the retired general while briefing reporters on President Barack Obama’s new strategy for the Pakistan-Afghan region.
‘And they (the Pakistanis) are very well aware of that. We have regular consultations on those issues. I think the future of US-Pakistan relationship is bright and it transcends problems related to insurgents and nuclear weapons.’
This marks the first time that a senior US official has publicly acknowledged Pakistan’s status as a state within the nuclear community and also as a state that was aware of the responsibilities that came with the status.
The statement follows demands from Islamabad that Washington grant the same status to Pakistan as it did to India while signing an agreement to provide nuclear technology to New Delhi.
Although the US is unlikely to offer a similar agreement to Pakistan, placing the country in the nuclear bracket is an important step forward in that direction.
At the same briefing, Mr Jones also declared that the United States could not leave Afghanistan until terrorist safe havens in Pakistan’s tribal areas were uprooted.
This, he explained, meant that the United States had ‘no intention of leaving Afghanistan in the near future and certainly not in 2011.’
When announcing 30,000 fresh troops to Afghanistan on Tuesday, President Obama indicated the United States would begin to withdraw from that country in July 2011. Pakistan is nuclear state, acknowledges US By Anwar Iqbal, Saturday, 05 Dec, 2009
Tags: nuclear weapons,Pakistan nuclear,nuclear proliferation
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