ISLAMABAD: The Pakistani military said on Monday "unfounded and unnecessary views" on the country's strategic program, which involves its nuclear arsenal, should be avoided, in what is being widely seen as a veiled reference to recent comments by former Prime Minister Imran Khan.
In an interview to a local TV channel last week, Khan warned that a growing economic crisis would hit the country’s all powerful military, which could then be pushed by world powers to denuclearize. In April, Khan, who was ousted that month in a parliamentary vote of no-confidence, told supporters at a rally Pakistan’s nuclear weapons were unsafe under the leadership of new Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif. In another statement in May, Khan said “dropping an atomic bomb would have been better” for Pakistan than Sharif being in power.
Since his ouster, Khan and his supporters have variously publicly criticized the military for not supporting him in the opposition’s bid to topple his government.
"As a norm in other nuclear-capable nations, unnecessary and unfounded views on the strategic program should be avoided. When necessary, NCA [National Command authority] is the right forum to issue specific responses or views,” General Nadeem Raza, the chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee (CJCSC), was quoted by the army’s media wing, the ISPR, as saying.
Raza is the deputy chairman of the NCA, which oversees the operational command and control of Pakistan's nuclear arsenals.
"Pakistan is a confident and responsible nuclear power,” he said in the ISPR statement. “It pursues the policy of full spectrum deterrence within the precincts of credible minimum deterrence. Our national security and safety architecture meets all national and international obligations and caters for all kinds of scenarios.”
This is not the first time the Pakistan military has responded to comments by the former prime minister.
In an April press conference, ISPR Director-General Maj Gen Babar Iftikhar also responded to Khan’s remarks that the nuclear weapons were unsafe under the current government.
"As far as our political leadership is concerned, the nuclear assets are not affiliated with any particular political leadership. Since Pakistan's nuclear weapon has been started, all the governments that have come, have worked with all their loyalty... and helped it get where we are today," the ISPR DG had said.
"This is the reason that our command and control mechanism and our assets' security is one of the best systems in the international evaluation."
