WASHINGTON – Pakistan’s Chief of Naval Staff, Admiral Zafar Mahmood Abbasihas said that India’s sea based nuclear weaponry initiative has compelledIslamabad to take measures for deterrence in order to keep strategicstability paradigm stabilised.
“Our Eastern neighbor has introduced sea-based nuclear weapons which was amajor deviation, and a major nuclear change, between our two countries. Sowe think once you disturbed this strategic stability paradigm then there isan increased risk of war or conflict,” he said adding that, in order toaddress the threat Pakistan opted for the minimum deterrence required toplug this gap.
Talking to media here at the Pakistan Embassy on Monday afternoon, AdmiralAbbasi said since Pakistan was facing security issues, especially threatsfrom its Eastern neighbour, for which it has an elaborate programme inplace. The programme provides all the tools, procedures and settings underthe Central Command which runs through Strategic Plans Division. “Sea-basednuclear weapons provide assured second strike capability which disturbs theequation, so unless we equate that then the imbalance might induce India tostart a conventional war,” he added.
Answering a question Admiral Abbasi dismissed the concern that China wassetting up a base at the Gwadar Port, and insisted that there was”absolutely no truth to that.” He said that there were no plans to handover any base to foreign navies anywhere in Pakistan, and emphasised thatGwadar was purely a commercial harbour and only Pakistan Navy would have “abig base there.” He said so far no foreign warship had entered Gwadar, butwhenever that happens it would be open to all other navies including US,French and Royal navy as well.
He further said that Pakistan signed a deal with China in early 2016 topurchase eight conventional submarines. The programme will mature in 2025,half of them will be built in China and the rest in Pakistan.
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Referring to recently inked India-US maritime agreements, Admiral Abbasisaid such deals were not “a zero sum game,” and would not mean that the USwas holding exercises with India and not with Pakistan.
“Pakistan is going to hold multi-national maritime exercises in Februarynext year, where some fifty navies from the world including US and Chinesenavy will take part,” he said. Last such maritime exercise took place in2017 in which 37 countries participated. However, the naval chief urgedthat the US should share intelligence gathering with Pakistan to combatdrug trafficking through sea routes.
