“Pakistan has serious concerns over these developments”, he said.
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Sartaj Aziz, foreign affairs adviser to Pakistan’s prime minister, told the senate that India’s latest test, as well as recent tests of nuclear capable submarine-based ballistic missiles, was “leading to nuclearization” of the Indian Ocean.
India announced on May 15 it had test-fired a locally designed single-stage Ashvin advanced defense interceptor missile from a mobile launcher, saying it successfully destroyed an incoming nuclear-capable ballistic missile.
“Simultaneously large nuclear powered submarines are being built to carry these nuclear armed missile as a part of its second strike nuclear capability”, Aziz alleged while making a statement in the Senate, the Upper House of Parliament.
According to recently declassified State Department Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR) reports by the National Security Archive and the Nuclear Proliferation International History Project, a few years after Chinas first nuclear test in October 1964 INR wondered whether China would help Pakistan, among other countries, acquire a nuclear capability. “The deployment of these nuclear-powered and nuclear-armed missiles in the Indian Ocean will not only upset the strategic balance in South Asia but will also affect the maritime security of all the 32 littoral states around the Indian Ocean”.
“We are also planning to highlight the risky implications of India’s plans to nuclearise the Indian Ocean in all relevant global fora”, he added, stating that a proposal is under consideration to move a resolution at the next General Assembly session of the United Nations in September to declare the Indian Ocean a “nuclear free zone”.
“Pakistan is fully prepared to defend its people and its borders”, Mr Aziz said, adding that the country would take all necessary measures to augment and upgrade its defence capabilities through suitable technologies. “Normalisation of relations between Pakistan and India will require honest efforts, good faith and commitment from both countries”, Foreign Office spokesman Nafees Zakaria said at his weekly media briefing.
Zakaria said Pakistan had conveyed its concerns to the United States and members of the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva about Indian ambitious missile programme.
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“Our efforts for peace and friendship must not be interpreted as a sign of weakness”, said Sartaj Aziz. He said it was encouraging that Afghanistan was engaging with other groups on its own with an objective of enduring peace.
