Pak. fears threat to its nuclear arsenal

LONDON, NOV. 4. Pakistan is under pressure to move all or part of its nuclear weapons to China for safekeeping from fundamentalists and it is apprehensive of pre-emptive strikes on its nuclear sites by the U.S., India or Israel, The Sunday Times report said today quoting Pakistani sources.

According to the report, the Pakistan Foreign Minister, Mr. Abdul Sattar, said last week the arsenal was secure. But the U.S. officials had expressed concern that any coup attempt against the Pakistan President, General Pervez Musharraf, might put Pakistan's arsenal at risk.

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

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

- PTI

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Section  : International
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