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Pakistan fears threat to its nuclear arsenal

Pakistan is under pressure to move all or part of its nuclear weapons to China for safekeeping and it is apprehensive of pre-emptive strikes on its nuclear sites by America, India or Israel to prevent the weapons from falling into fundamentalist hands, media report said on Sunday.

The threat to weapons -- widely regarded as the Pakistan military's 'crown jewels' -- has forced Islamabad "to consider removing warheads to China, Pakistan's closest strategic ally in the region," Britain's Sunday Times reported.

The prospect that loose warheads might be loaded onto helicopters or moved around a region foaming with fundamentalist turmoil is adding to fears in Washington that the war in Afghanistan might provoke a nuclear crisis.

Last Week, Pakistani Foreign Minister Abdul Sattar had insisted that the arsenal was secure.

But Washington officials have expressed mounting alarm that any coup attempt against President Pervez Musharraf might put Pakistan's nuclear arsenal at risk.

Pakistani generals were appalled by one authoritative American report last week that an elite Pentagon undercover unit, trained to disarm nuclear weapons, was exploring plans for a mission inside Pakistan.

"Every fear they have had over the past 20 years about people coming to get our missiles is suddenly coming to the fore," Zia Mian, a Pakistani physicist and authority on the nuclear programme said.

China's nuclear relations with Pakistan have long been the focus of controversy. Chinese scientists are believed to have played a key role in developing Pakistan's nuclear programme in the early 1980s. The two countries share a mistrust of India, which has also developed nuclear weapons.

PTI

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