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Aziz asks international community to restrain India

Pakistan Foreign Minister Sartaj Aziz today said Islamabad would not jump into a nuclear weapons race provided the world community exerted pressure on India to exercise restraint on its nuclear programme.

Before the Indian government has a chance to finalise its doctrine, the world community should exercise pressure to restrain them. ''If they do, we will have no cause to worry and we will obviously not jump into race as it is expensive and not affordable,'' Aziz said in an interview with the BBC.

He alleged that the doctrine was a call for an arms race in the sub-continent as it would lead to further production and deployment of nuclear weapons for second strike capability. Besides, this would also warrant better and faster delivery system, implying further deployments and production of Agni-II.

The foreign minister said Pakistan does not want to engange itself in a further arms race.But if india were to go ahead, pakistan would have to review its policy, he added.

UNI

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