Pakistan summons US envoy for demarche over Joe Biden’s nukes remarks

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan reacted strongly on Saturday to US President Joe Biden’s remarks that Pakistan was among the most dangerous nations in the world when it came to the safety of its nuclear weapons and summoned US ambassador to Islamabad Donald Blome to issue him an official demarche.
Hours after Pakistan foreign minister Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari spoke in detail on the issue, prime minister Shehbaz Sharif hit back at Biden, saying Pakistan had proven to be a “most responsible nuclear state” over the past decades and that its nuclear programme was managed through a “technically sound and foolproof command and control system”. A statement from the PMO described Biden’s comments as “factually incorrect and misleading”.
“Pakistan has also consistently demonstrated responsible stewardship of its nuclear-weapons capability, marked by a very strong commitment to global standards, including those of the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) on non-proliferation, safety, and security,” Sharif said.
According to the PM, the real threat to international peace and security was posed by “ultra-nationalism, violation of human rights in regions that are struggling against illegal occupation, violation of global norms by some states, repeated nuclear security incidents, the arms race among leading nuclear weapon states, and introduction of new security constructs that disturb the regional balance”.
Earlier, Bilawal said at a press conference in Karachi that Pakistan’s nuclear assets “meet each and every international standard in accordance with the IAEA as far as security and safety of the country's nuclear programme is concerned. The minister pointed out India’s accidental firing of a missile into Pakistan on March 9. If there was any question as to nuclear safety and security then those questions, the minister said, should be directed to India, who had very recently, accidentally, fired a missile into Pakistani territory. “That is not only irresponsible, that is not only unsafe, but raises genuine concerns about the safety of nuclear-capable countries,” the minister said.
On Islamabad’s position on Ukraine, Bilawal explained that the country had abstained from voting on a UNGA resolution earlier this week, which called on countries not to recognise the four regions of Ukraine that Russia claims through referendums held under its occupation, because the resolution contained language from other resolutions on which Pakistan had abstained from voting in the past.
Bilawal said that he was looking forward to seeing similar concern about what he claimed was India’s action to “annex” Kashmir, which, according to him, was a “complete violation of international law and relevant UN resolutions”.
Meanwhile, Pakistan defence minister Khawaja Asif also issued a strong response to Biden’s comments, saying that Pakistan’s record as a responsible nuclear power was “unimpeachable, and internationally attested to, unlike the existence of WMDs in Iraq” — referring to US claims about the presence of WMDs in Iraq, claims that were later debunked. “We have also historically provided military assistance to the very armed forces whose commander-in-chief erroneously questions our ‘cohesion’,” Asif added.