Pakistan has voiced concern over the policies of certain countries that have allegedly contributed to instability and military imbalances in South Asia.
Speaking in the opening session of the United Nation (UN)’s Disarmament Commission, Pakistan’s Permanent Representative Maleeha Lodhi claimed that waivers and exemptions to long-held non-proliferation principles were contributing to insecurity in certain regions, especially South Asia.
She pointed to a “disturbing trend” in many parts of the world where military expenditures were rising and conventional weapons inventories expanding.
Ambassador Lodhi also lamented the present impasse in the disarmament agenda, asserting that progress on nuclear disarmament remained stalled as “some Nuclear Weapon States were neither willing to give up their large inventories of nuclear weapons nor their modernisation programmes, even as they pursue non-proliferation with messianic zeal”.
She made an emphatic call to convene a fourth special session of the UN General Assembly on disarmament to try to break the deadlock and make headway towards disarmament.
Pakistan’s envoy said that over 50 heads of state and government have been meeting every two years, since 2010, at nuclear security summits that deal with the security of about 15 per cent of the world’s nuclear material. “Surely, world leaders should also meet in the General Assembly’s Special Disarmament Session to discuss security in a world of some 17,000 nuclear warheads.”
She argued for a holistic approach to existing and emerging challenges to global and regional security and to arms control and disarmament, on the basis of “constructive multilateralism”.
“For over a decade, Pakistan has been advocating building an international consensus on disarmament issues based on the principle of equal security for all,” she said, also urging a comprehensive approach to deal with both causes and manifestations of violence, wars and killings, arising from the use of conventional weapons.