UNITED NATIONS: Pakistan has voiced concerns over the increasing transfer of arms in volatile regions – in a thin-veiled reference to India.
According to Islamabad, the transfer has a potential of fuelling instability and jeopardising the already delicate regional balance.
“South Asia is a sensitive region where one state’s military spending grossly and vastly out-grows the others,” Ambassador Tehmina Janjua – Pakistan’s permanent representative to the United Nations in Geneva – told the United Nations General Assembly’s Disarmament and International Security Committee on Thursday.
“We remain concerned over the growing transfers of conventional armaments especially in volatile regions that are inconsistent with the imperatives of maintaining peace, security and stability,” she said.
“The policy of dual standards towards South Asia – based on narrow strategic, political and commercial considerations – must be eschewed,” she added.
In her remarks, Ambassador Janjua said the efforts to eliminate nuclear weapons must not give way to an unworkable imbalance of conventional weapons – similar to those that had triggered two world wars.
Results would be few and far between if the issue of conventional weapons was not addressed in a comprehensive manner, the envoy said.
The ambassador said that Pakistan shares the concerns about the acquisition and use by non-state actors and terrorists of small arms and Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs).
