ISLAMABAD, April 27: Foreign Office Spokesperson Tasnim Aslam has said that Pakistan’s nuclear weapons are not meant for first use but for effective deterrence to war.

In an interview to a private TV channel on Thursday, she said: “Our history with India shows nuclear weapons working as deterrence.”

She said: “We are a small country, but we cannot renounce the idea of ‘no first use’ (NFU) which is a part of our strategic planning and concept of deterrence.”

She said in Nato and Warsaw there was no commitment of NFU despite the fact that they had tactical and strategic weapons and wider distances.

In reply to a question about recent India-Pakistan nuclear confidence building measures (CBMs) and removal of difference on the issue till July, Tasnim Aslam said it was continuity of a process.

“The recent talks held in Islamabad took up the progress on previous CBMs and now we have provided a new draft agreement to India, which is based on ‘incidents at sea’. They would take back this draft to discuss it under their inter-agency consultation process and then it would come back to us,” she said.

In the Lahore declaration, both sides affirmed their intentions of working out an agreement on pre-notification of ballistic missiles. The FO spokesperson said: “CBMs is a process under which we would like to see what kind of initiatives Indian side offers to us. Different agencies, departments and ministries would get confidence out of these consultations.”

Replying to a question about her recent visit to the US for strategic dialogue, she said basically, it was inaugural of a strategic dialogue process about which decision had been taken during the US president’s visit to Pakistan.

“It is not a new thing, we are in continuous process of dialogue with the US and our relations with the US on strategic issues are older,” she said, adding that now it was decided that the cooperation between the two countries in diverse fields and common objectives should be discussed under a framework.

Replying to another question about the US-India nuclear deal, Tasnim Aslam said Pakistan had clarified its position on the issue.

“During the prime minister’s visit to the US, we were told firmly that a deal of this kind was being discussed and at that time we made our position clear on the issue. We told them that Pakistan had the same energy requirements as India had, and the arguments which were being used for India were also applicable to Pakistan,” she said, adding: “We cannot accept discriminatory approach, that’s why we are out of the NPT.”

—APP