UNITED NATIONS: Pakistan, in an obvious reference to India, has voiced concern over the growing transfers of conventional armaments in volatile regions, terming it has every potential of fueling instability and jeopardising the delicate regional balance.
“South Asia is a sensitive region where one state’s military spending grossly and vastly out-shadows all others,” Ambassador Tehmina Janjua, permanent representative of Pakistan to the United Nations in Geneva, told the General Assembly’s Disarmament and International Security Committee.
“We remain concerned over the growing transfers of conventional armaments, especially in volatile regions that are inconsistent with the imperatives of maintaining peace, security and stability”, she said in a thematic debate on conventional weapons. “The policy of dual standards towards South Asia, based on narrow strategic, political and commercial considerations, must be eschewed,” she added.
The ambassador said that Pakistan was committed to the establishment of strategic stability in South Asia, which includes an element of conventional force balance adding that Pakistan neither wants, nor is it engaged in an arms race in the region. In his remarks, Ambassador Janjua said efforts to eliminate nuclear weapons must not give way to an unworkable imbalance of conventional weapons similar to those that had triggered two world wars. She further said that spending on conventional arms had surpassed $1.7 trillion, while the total budget of the United Nations was around three percent of world military expenditures and that 33 times more money was being spent on fueling and exacerbating conflicts than on preventing them. The results would be few and far between if the issue of conventional weapons was not addressed in a comprehensive manner, she added.
“The utility of a partial approach that separates motivations for arms production from the controls of their trade and transfers will be limited at best. As a result, these weapons will continue to fuel conflicts, destabilise states and societies, inflicting enormous pain and suffering to humanity”, she said. Janjua said that Pakistan has developed the necessary legislative, regulatory, enforcement and institutional mechanisms to address the range of issues related to conventional arms including small arms and light weapons.
“We are taking additional measures to strengthen the enforcement regime, which covers imports and licensing”, she added.
Pakistan consider the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT), as a first step towards regulating trade and transfer of conventional weapons and note its entry into force, she said.
“Even as we continue our national review of the treaty, we believe that ATT’s success, effectiveness and universality will be assessed on its non-discriminatory implementation in particular its criteria and strict adherence by its state parties to the treaty principles”, Janjua added.
She said the success of Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW) lies in the delicate balance it seeks to maintain by minimising human suffering without sacrificing the legitimate security interests of states. Ambassador Janjua said that Pakistan shares the concerns about the acquisition and use by non-state actors and terrorists of small arms and improvised explosive devices (IEDs).