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Report on Pak nukes ‘absurd, mischievous’: No foreign entity allowed to cross ‘red lines’: CJCSC

* Pakistan has very effective nuclear security regime
* Rules out sharing any information about nuclear assets with anyone

By Sajjad Malik

RAWALPINDI: No foreign entity is allowed to cross the “red lines” and gain intrusive access to strategic assets, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee (CJCSC) General Tariq Majid said on Monday.

Commenting on an article about Pakistan’s nukes by Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Seymour M Hersh, which was published in ‘The New Yorker’ – Gen Majid said Pakistan had operationalised a very effective nuclear security regime, which had incorporated “very stringent custodial and access controls”.

No sharing: “I reiterate in very unambiguous terms that there is absolutely no question of sharing or allowing any foreign individual, entity or state any access to sensitive information about our nuclear assets,” said Majid, who is also the overall custodian of the development of the country’s strategic programme. The CJCSC rejected Hersh’s 7,000 words article, branding it “absurd and plain mischief”.

“Our engagement with other countries ... to learn more about international best practices for security of such assets is based on two clearly spelt out red lines – non intrusiveness and our right to pick and choose,” he said.

Majid said Pakistan’s security apparatus had the capacity to meet all conceivable challenges. “Therefore, we do not need to negotiate with any other country to physically augment our security forces, which in any case, we believe, are more capable than their forces,” he said.

Commenting on an article titled ‘Pakistan Nuclear Security Plan: How Much Does US Really Know?’, which was published in a local English daily on Monday, he said, “Only that much as they can guess and nothing more.” In the latest issue of The New Yorker magazine, Hersh wrote that US officials had negotiated pacts with Pakistan to provide security for the nuclear arsenal in extreme circumstances.

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