'Responsible' Pak needs nukes as deterrent against India: Gilani - India News and Travel Times Provides India-centric and other News and Features

Allaying international community's concerns over the impending threat posed by extremists to the country's nuclear assets, Pakistan Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani has described his country as a 'responsible nuclear power' while rejecting calls to halt production of fissile nuclear materials. Interacting with media during a roundtable meeting here, Gilani insisted that Islamabad needed fissile nuclear materials as a deterrent against India. "For a minimum deterrence, we have to have. That is our requirement," Gilani said while circumventing any direct statement, and added that the issue has been discussed with the United States. "I assure you that Pakistan, as a responsible nuclear state and an emerging democracy, stands with the international community in its effort to make this world a better place to live in," The News quoted Gilani, as saying Foreign Minister, Shah Mehmood Qureshi, who is also accompanying Gilani to his Washington visit, said the Obama Administration has been explained in detail about the three-layer security system Pakistan has put in place for its nuclear establishments. "We are confident that our system is second to none. It's world class. Fortunately, there has been no incident," Qureshi said. When asked that whether US investigators would get an access to Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan, Gilani said the issue was a 'closed chapter', while rejecting the notion that the disgraced nuclear scientist was walking free. "He is actively being regulated by the judiciary," Gilani said. Khan, the father of Pakistan's nuclear programmed, publicly confessed in 2004 that he shared atomic secrets with Iran, Libya and North Korea, although he later retracted his remarks. It is worth mentioning here that John Brennan, the top anti-terrorism adviser to President Barack Obama, on Monday, had warned that Al-Qaeda's interest in nuclear weapons was "strong" and said the risk of nuclear terrorism was "real, "serious" and "growing." A report by Harvard University's Belfer Centre for Science and International Affairs, titled Securing the Bomb, said Pakistan's stockpile "faces a greater threat from Islamic extremists seeking nuclear weapons than any other nuclear stockpile on earth."