Washington: Pakistan may give Taliban “access” to nuclear weapons for use against India in the event of escalated tension or war between the two countries, a US non-proliferation official has said.
“If something broke out in Kashmir that re-ignited the vitriol between India and Pakistan there could be an incident that could cause someone to make the decision ‘we don’t want to use these weapons but we are going to let our surrogate Taliban have access to these weapons and they will do our dirty work,’’’ Bob Graham told US lawmakers.
Graham, head of US commission on the prevention of WMD (weapons of mass destruction) proliferation and terrorism, was responding to questions from anxious lawmakers who expressed concern over the safety and security of nuclear weapons in Pakistan at a hearing convened by the house Homeland Security Committee.
“I think one of our recommendations was to work with India and Pakistan to develop some fail-safe procedures. Unlike the US and the Soviet Union during the cold war, where although we were strong adversaries and had the capability of destroying each other we understood that we didn’t want to allow a misstep or an accidental event to become the ignition for such a war. So we set up the red phone in the Oval Office and a whole protocol,” said Graham said, referring to the report of the commission released early this year.
“None of that exists between India and Pakistan. I have felt that this may be an area in which the US and Russia together might work together with India and Pakistan,” he said.
“I was encouraged that within the last month India and China have started to develop some of those fail-safe procedures. But there is almost nothing that has been done in a similar vein between the real adversaries, which are India and Pakistan.”
Comments
0 comment