Summary Pakistan's delegation is led by Special Assistant to Prime Minister Tariq Fatemi.
Dunya News Report (Madiha Fareed)
The fourth and final nuclear security summit is starting today in Washington DC. President United States Barack Obama will host leaders from fifty states to discuss the pressing issues regarding nuclear security.
Pakistan’s Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif was scheduled to attend the summit but he cancelled the visit owing to the terrorist attack in Lahore and the unrest in capital. Pakistan’s delegation is now led by Minister of State and Special Assistant to Prime Minister Mr. Tariq Fatemi.
The Nuclear Security Summit process was initiated in the landmark speech that the President Barack Obama gave in Prague in 2009. He categorically stated that “We must ensure that terrorists never acquire a nuclear weapon. This is the most immediate and extreme threat to global security.” To help address this threat, President Obama proposed head-of-state meetings to address the issue of nuclear security. The United States hosted the first of these gatherings—dubbed the Nuclear Security Summit—in 2010. Two subsequent summits were held in the Republic of Korea in 2012 and in the Netherlands in 2014.
The major focus of these summits have been to forge a global consensus to safeguard the nuclear weapons from falling into the hands of terrorist. This year’s nuclear summit comes at a time when the major cities in Europe have been targeted by terrorists. Ahead of the Summit Obama’s deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes told the media that “this time the nuclear summit is held under the fear that the ingredients for a nuclear device or a “dirty bomb” are alarmingly insecure, we know that terrorist organizations have the desire to get access to these raw materials and to have a nuclear device”. The top of the agenda of this year’s summit will be North Korea’s nuclear program and the threat of terrorists organization particularly ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria) getting their hands on nuclear weapons.
The western media is particularly concerned about Pakistan’s nuclear program and every now and then it is speculated that “Pakistan’s Nuclear Program” may fall into wrong hands. No amount of assurances and a clean record seem to satisfy the naysayers as they do not hesitate to paint the extreme hypothetical scenarios. Last year, The New York Times quoted a high level US government official saying that, “All it takes is one commander with secret radical sympathies, and you have a big problem”.
Last year ahead of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s visit to Washington, The New York Times reported that the Obama administration was concerned that Pakistan might be on the verge of deploying a small tactical nuclear weapon that would be harder to protect from falling into hands of militants.
Ahead of this year’s Summit, The esteemed Harvard Kennedy School‘s research Institute Belfer centre published a report titled “Preventing Nuclear Terrorism: Continuous Improvement or Dangerous Decline?” which reviews the security mechanism of the nuclear-capable states. The report warns Pakistan against the risk of a nuclear theft, but expressed satisfaction over the measures in place to ensure the safety of nuclear weapons.
“By some estimates, the Strategic Plans Division, which manages Pakistan’s nuclear weapons, has 25,000 troops available to guard Pakistani nuclear stocks and facilities. 82 Pakistani officials report that sites are equipped with extensive barriers and detection systems, that the components of nuclear weapons are stored separately and that Pakistani weapons are equipped with locks to prevent unauthorized use.” said the report.
The report also pointed out to the unstable political situation in Pakistan, “The possibilities of state collapse or extremist takeover cannot be entirely ruled out, though the near-term probability of such events appears to be low”.
The report warns that Pakistan must protect its nuclear assets against almost overwhelmingly adversary threats, including terrorist groups that have previously launched complex and well-coordinated attacks on heavily defended military targets within Pakistan.
“Although India has taken significant measures to protect its nuclear sites, recent reports suggest that its nuclear security measures may be weaker than those of Pakistan,” it added.
Despite the political unrest, long dictatorial regimes and worst terrorist incidents, no security breach or any incidents of leakages in the nuclear plants has ever been recorded in Pakistan’s nuclear program.
The HKS Report also stated that United States and Pakistan will continue meaningful dialogues to ensure nuclear security and that High Officials from United States including Obama and US Joint Chiefs of Staff have repeatedly expressed confidence in Pakistani Nuclear Security arrangements.
