UNITED NATIONS: Pakistan urged the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) to support negotiations to limit and control the build-up of nuclear and conventional weapons.
Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari, Foreign Minister of Pakistan, in his address to the UNSC in New York said, “This council should support negotiations in the relevant bodies to limit and control the nuclear and conventional arms build-up at the global and regional level, including the development and deployment of new weapons and military technologies”.
The nuclear weapons states, he said, must provide binding assurances to non-nuclear states against the use or threat of use of nuclear weapons.
Bilawal supported call for UNSC expansion, but opposes adding new permanent members
The foreign minister was responding to a concept note, circulated by India that presides over the current session of the UN Security Council, which is debating new orientation for reformed multilateralism.
Indian Minister for External Affairs S Jaishankar, who addressed the council before his Pakistani counterpart, launched a veiled attack on both China and Pakistan, accusing them of “misusing multilateral platforms” to promote their interests.
“Even as the world is coming together with a more collective response, multilateral platforms are being misused to justify and protect perpetrators of terrorism,” he claimed. This was an apparent reference to China, which has blocked several attempts by India to use the UN platform for defaming Pakistan.
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