Pakistan demarched US ambassador on President Biden’s remarks
Acting Foreign Secretary Jauhar Saleem called in US Ambassador Donald Blome to deliver a demarche on the recent remarks made by US President Joe Biden on 14th October during a Congressional Campaign Committee reception.
Ministry of Foreign Affairs in a press release issued in Islamabad expressed Pakistan’s disappointment and concern was conveyed to the US envoy on the unwarranted remarks, which were not based on ground reality or facts.
“It was made clear that Pakistan was a responsible nuclear state and its impeccable stewardship of the nuclear program and adherence to global standards and international best practices was well acknowledged, including by the IAEA” said MOFA statement.
It said “the real threat to international peace and security was posed by violation of global norms by some states, repeated nuclear security incidents without any accountability, and arms race between leading nuclear weapon states and introduction of new security constructs that disturb regional balance”.
It was essential to maintain the positive trajectory of Pakistan-US relations and the close cooperation between the two sides to build regional and global peace.
Earlier, on Thursday United States President Joe Biden said Pakistan may be “one of the most dangerous nations in the world” as the country has “nuclear weapons without any cohesion”.
Biden said this while addressing a “Democratic congressional campaign committee reception” .
According to transcript of the address issued by the White House’s website on Saturday. It quoted Biden as saying: “… And what I think is maybe one of the most dangerous nations in the world: Pakistan. Nuclear weapons without any cohesion.”
He said the world was changing rapidly and countries were rethinking their alliances. “And the truth of the matter is — I genuinely believe this — that the world is looking to us. Not a joke. Even our enemies are looking to us to figure out how we figure this out, what we do.”
There was a lot at stake, Biden said, emphasising that the US had the capacity to lead the world to a place it had never been before.
“Did any of you ever think you’d have a Russian leader, since the Cuban Missile Crisis, threatening the use of tactical nuclear weapons that would — could only kill three, four thousand people and be limited to make a point?
“Did anybody think we’d be in a situation where China is trying to figure out its role relative to Russia and relative to India and relative to Pakistan?”
Talking about his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping, the US president termed him as a man who knew what he wanted but had an “enormous” array of problems.
“How do we handle that? How do we handle that relative to what’s going on in Russia? And what I think is maybe one of the most dangerous nations in the world: Pakistan. Nuclear weapons without any cohesion,” Biden said.
