Pakistan asserts strategic assets completely secure

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Islamabad: Pakistan on Sunday reiterated that its strategic assets were "completely safe" and secure and that US officials had expressed their confidence about this.

Foreign Office Spokesman Abdul Basit in a statement in Islamabad on Sunday contested US columnist Seymour Hersh's article "Defending the Arsenal - In an unstable Pakistan, can nuclear warheads be kept safe?" posted on the website of The New Yorker magazine. The writer's assertions were utterly misleading and totally baseless, Basit asserted.

Basit said that the multi-layered custodial controls that have been developed indigenously were as foolproof and effective as in any other nuclear weapons state, Online news agency reported.

He said that Pakistan, therefore, does not require any foreign assistance in this regard. Nor will Pakistan, as a sovereign state, allow any country direct or indirect access to its nuclear and strategic facilities.

"Any suggestion to this effect is simply preposterous. Our second-to-none professional armed forces are fully capable to take care of our nuclear arsenal," the spokesman added.

He said that to set the record straight, no talks have ever taken place on the issue with US officials.

Basit added that it needs to be emphasized that contrary to what Hersh claimed, the US has repeatedly expressed its full confidence in Pakistan's custodial controls. Most recently, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton herself denied any US concerns in this regard, he pointed out.

According to Basit, Hersh had yet again betrayed his anti-Pakistan bias by making several false and highly irresponsible claims by quoting anonymous and unverifiable sources. Thus, the article was nothing more than a concoction to tarnish the image of Pakistan and create misgivings among its people.