Pakistan calls out India’s nuclear delinquency; vows firm response
Celina Ali
Islamabad: Pakistan has issued a strong warning at the UN Conference on Disarmament in Geneva that India’s illegal threat and use of force against a nuclear-armed neighbor, now in shape of Indian leadership’s revisionist posture, the so-called “new normal”, poses a serious threat to strategic stability in South Asia.
Delivering a statement at the UN’s principal disarmament body today, Pakistan’s Permanent Representative, Ambassador Bilal Ahmad, said that India’s missile, drone, and air strikes on Pakistani territory earlier this month were part of a larger pattern aimed at “normalizing the idea that military strikes between nuclear-armed states are acceptable.”
He warned: “India seeks to normalize the idea that military strikes between nuclear-armed states are acceptable; that military losses are tolerable if the political narrative can be managed; that phantom victories can be claimed while real setbacks are denied—even when exposed by international media.”
The Ambassador cited a growing list of destabilizing developments: India’s deployment of nuclear weapons at sea, its testing of anti-satellite weapons, canisterization of missiles, and a shift toward a counterforce posture. These, he noted, were “not contours of credible minimum deterrence but preparation to project power far beyond South Asia.”
“For over a decade,” Ambassador Ahmad said, “Pakistan has warned this Conference of India’s hegemonic mindset and refusal to coexist peacefully with sovereign neighbors. This mindset has further hardened under the influence of the ruling Hindutva ideology that aims to reconstruct history, demography, and reshape geography.”
He emphasized that India’s recent actions were not isolated but part of a “strategic posture” that “thrives on reckless overconfidence in military imbalance,” driven by “unchecked violations of international law,” “hate-fueled populist rhetoric,” and “delusional expert analyses.”
“No other nuclear weapon state behaves with such recklessness,” the envoy asserted. “No nuclear-armed state fires high-speed, dual-capable missiles across international borders into the territory of another nuclear power.”
The statement also highlighted that India invokes the terrorism bogey to mask its geopolitical ambitions of projecting regional power and hegemony, using military force as a coercive tool of state policy.
Ambassador Ahmad expressed concern over international permissiveness toward India’s buildup, citing how export control regimes had “bent their rules,” giving India access to sensitive technologies while holding Pakistan to “phantom commitments divorced from strategic realities.”
He called upon States engaged in defence cooperation with India to understand and recognize the consequences that the weapons and technologies they transfer to India today may well be used tomorrow in acts of aggression against civilians and in violations of IHL.
He concluded with a warning: “if India chooses the path of aggression again, the consequences—and the responsibility—will lie entirely at its door. Pakistan will stand ready to meet any Indian aggression at every escalating level with greater ferocity and resolve”.
Ambassador Ahmad called on the international community to uphold the UN Charter and support diplomacy over confrontation, stressing that “South Asia does not need another crisis. It requires a future shaped by cooperation, not confrontation.”
Reacting to Indian delegate’s reference to so called “nuclear blackmail”, Pakistan delegation responded that such self-imposed claims are made to hide India’s own nuclear delinquency.
