Pakistan Dismisses U.S. Nuclear Security Concerns

Pakistan yesterday brushed off U.S. warnings that there are vulnerabilities in its nuclear security structure, Agence France-Presse reported (see GSN, Feb. 6).

Political instability in Pakistan has “not seriously threatened the military’s control of the nuclear arsenal, but vulnerabilities exist,” the U.S. intelligence community said in an annual threat assessment released Tuesday.

Pakistani Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammed Sadiq said the U.S. concerns are unfounded.

“Pakistan's nuclear assets are safe.  There should be no cause for concern over hypothetical scenarios which have zero probability,” Sadiq said in a weekly news briefing (Agence France-Presse/Spacewar.com, Feb. 6).

Meanwhile, the Pakistani Embassy in Washington has said Islamabad would not give former top nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan over for questioning by an outside country, Asian News International reported yesterday (see GSN, Jan. 31).

Asia expert Selig Harrison said in a Washington Post commentary that the Pakistani nuclear proliferator could answer U.S. questions regarding North Korea’s suspected uranium enrichment capabilities.   Embassy spokesman Akram Shaheedi responded in a letter to the newspaper that Pakistan conducted a full investigation of the Khan network and disclosed its findings to the International Atomic Energy Agency.

“It is unfair and offensive to malign Pakistan's leadership on such a sensitive issue as nuclear proliferation.  This analysis was built on hearsay rather than substance and the facts,” Shaheedi said (Asian News International/Daily India, Feb. 6).

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