Pak could use "surrogate" Taliban to use nukes against India

NUKE-INDOPAK

Lalit K Jha
Washington, Apr 23 (PTI) Pakistan may slip over
nuclear weapons to the Taliban for use against India in the
event of escalated tension or war between the two neighbours,
a non-proliferation US commission has said.
"If something broke out in Kashmir that reignited the
vitriol between India and Pakistan, that could be an incident
that could cause someone to make the decision.
"We don't want to use these weapons, but we're going
to let our surrogate Taliban have access to these weapons and
they'll do our dirty work," Bob Graham, head of US Commission
on the Prevention of WMD proliferation and terrorism told US
lawmakers at a Congressional hearing.
Graham 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," 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, since we developed these protocols for our own
benefit and the world's benefit, might work together with
India and Pakistan to try to get them to develop," 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's almost nothing that has been done in a
similar vein between the real adversaries, which are India and
Pakistan," Graham said. PTI LKJ
MRD


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