UNITED NATIONS, Oct 21 (APP): Pakistan has expressed concern over the “generous” supply of conventional weapons to India, saying it was fueling instability and jeopardizing the delicate regional balance in South Asia.
“The policy of double standards towards South Asia, based on narrow strategic, political and commercial considerations, must be eschewed,” Ambassador Khalil Hashmi told the UN General Assembly’s First Committee, which deals with disarmament and international security matters.
At the same time, Ambassador Hashmi, who is Pakistan’s permanent representative to UN offices in Geneva, said that Pakistan was committed to the establishment of strategic stability in South Asia, which includes an element of conventional force balance.
“Pakistan neither wants nor is it engaged in an arms race in the region,” the Pakistani envoy said in New York during a thematic debate on conventional weapons.
“For over three decades,” he said, “this Committee has adopted Pakistan’s resolution on the promotion of conventional arms control at the regional and sub-regional levels, based on the principles of undiminished security of all states, and balanced reduction of forces and of conventional armaments.
The destabilizing developments, fueled by huge arms transfers were “evident in South Asia where one state’s military spending vastly outnumbers that of all others,” Ambassador Hashmi said, without naming India.
“The generous supply of conventional weaponry to this state, together with its strategic capabilities, is fueling instability, jeopardizing the delicate regional balance, hindering the resolution of longstanding disputes, reinforcing its sense of impunity and hegemonic designs and impeding the realization of durable peace and sustainable development in the region,” the Pakistani envoy added.
At the outset, Ambassador Hashmi said that, although conventional armaments were the first category of lethal weapons, efforts to regulate them had been only partially successful.
The situation, he said, was further exacerbated by the increasing sophistication in and growing integration of artificial intelligence into conventional weaponry, with global military expenditures exceeding cold war levels — crossing for the first time $2 trillion.
Some 150 times more funds were spent on exacerbating conflicts than preventing them, the Pakistani envoy said adding that the trade volume in those weapons also continued to grow.
Arms sellers often encouraged both sides in a conflict to buy more, he said. The urge for profits remained irresistible, and new markets continue to be explored, created and pursued.
The result, he said, was a series of regional arms races, mostly in volatile parts of the world. Those included non-State actors wreaking havoc on civilian populations.
