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“Pakistan holds about 100–120 nuclear weapons, which can be delivered by aircraft, land-based missiles. Islamabad is among the handful of nations that have been increasing their nuclear warhead stockpiles”
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WASHINGTON: Pakistan and the rest of the world received a very significant, crucial and dangerous message from the US President Joe Biden when he said Pakistan may be “one of the most dangerous nations in the world” as the country has “nuclear weapons without any cohesion”, it emerged on Saturday.
He made the remarks while addressing a Democratic congressional campaign committee reception on Thursday.
A transcript of the address, published on the White House’s website, quoted Biden as saying: “… And what I think is maybe one of the most dangerous nations in the world: Pakistan. Nuclear weapons without any cohesion.”
The US president’s remarks were made in the context of the changing geopolitical situation globally.
He said the world was changing rapidly and countries were rethinking their alliances. “And the truth of the matter is — I genuinely believe this — that the world is looking to us. Not a joke. Even our enemies are looking to us to figure out how we figure this out, what we do.”
There was a lot at stake, Biden said, emphasising that the US had the capacity to lead the world to a place it had never been before.
“Did any of you ever think you’d have a Russian leader, since the Cuban Missile Crisis, threatening the use of tactical nuclear weapons that would — could only kill three, four thousand people and be limited to make a point?
“Did anybody think we’d be in a situation where China is trying to figure out its role relative to Russia and relative to India and relative to Pakistan?”
Talking about his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping, the US president termed him as a man who knew what he wanted but had an “enormous” array of problems.
“How do we handle that? How do we handle that relative to what’s going on in Russia? And what I think is maybe one of the most dangerous nations in the world: Pakistan. Nuclear weapons without any cohesion,” Biden said.
Pakistan holds about 100–120 nuclear weapons, which can be delivered by aircraft and land-based missiles. Of the world’s nine nuclear-armed countries, India and Pakistan are among the handful that have been increasing their nuclear warhead stockpiles, according to the Federation of American Scientists (FAS).
“Maybe one of the most dangerous nations in the world,” Biden said on Friday at a private residence in California, referring to Pakistan. Revealing that Pakistan has nuclear weapons “without any cohesion.”
Officially for years allies in fighting terrorism, Pakistan and the United States have had a complicated relationship, bound by Washington’s dependence on Pakistan to supply its troops in Afghanistan but plagued by accusations Islamabad was playing a double game and militants that targetted American troops in Afghanistan were allowed to shelter on Pakistani soil.
Pakistan’s nuclear delivery systems include at least four short-range and two medium-range ballistic missiles, according to estimates by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. Several more missiles, including an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) with a range of 7,000 kilometers, are under development.
India tested a nuclear explosive device for the first time in 1974, which then pushed Pakistan to speed up work on its own secret program.
Both countries, which publicly demonstrated their nuclear weapon capabilities in tit-for-tat tests in May 1998, haven’t signed on to the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
The NPT, which took effect in 1970, is aimed at halting the spread of nuclear weapons-making capability and is signed by around 190 countries.