KUALA LUMPUR: Pakistan today [June 23] urged the fifth conference of Islamic Foreign Ministers to give serious consideration to the need for securing “adequate and credible” security assurances for non-nuclear States against a nuclear threat. … Speaking in the general debate Pakistan’s Minister [of] State for Foreign Affairs, Mr. Aziz Ahmed, said that the May 18 Indian nuclear blast had shown the way to dangerous proliferation of nuclear weapons throughout the world. Stating that responsible opinion in most countries had condemned the test, he said it was not a matter which concerned Pakistan alone, but the entire world.

[Meanwhile, as reported by news agencies from Moscow,] the Soviet Union said … that Israel alone must bear full responsibility for any increase in tension in the Middle East. A Tass … statement accused Israel of barbarous attacks on the Lebanon “which openly trample underfoot the (UN) Security Council decisions”. In terms which repeated in tougher language what the [USSR] has been saying since the Israeli-Syrian ceasefire … the statement dismissed Israeli claims that raids into the Lebanon were justified by Arab guerrilla attacks on Israel.

Published in Dawn, June 24th, 2024