What happened: Prime Minister Imran Khan, in his recent controversial interview on Axios, said that Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal is “simply a deterrent” to protect the country. Pakistan won’t require it once the Kashmir issue is resolved. “The moment there is a settlement on Kashmir, the two neighbours would live as civilised people. We will not need to have nuclear deterrents,” He said while speaking to journalist Jonathan Swan on Axios on HBO. “Intelligence analysts say Pakistan has the fastest growing nuclear arsenal anywhere in the world. Why?” the interviewer questioned. “I don’t know where they’ve come up with this. Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal is simply a deterrent, to protect ourselves,” he replied. He also added that he was “not sure” whether the nuclear arsenal was growing. “As far as I know, it’s not an offensive thing. Any country which has a neighbor seven times its size would be worried.” He also added that he was completely against nuclear arms. “I always have been. We’ve had three wars against India and ever since we have had a nuclear deterrent, there has been no war between the two countries. We’ve had border skirmishes but we’ve never faced war,” Prime Minister said. Khan’s statement regarding nuclear de-escalation faced a lot of backlash from the opposition. “Who has given the right to this prime minister to say that Pakistan’s nuclear programme is negotiable,” probed Ahsan Iqbal, PMLN secretary general during the debate on the federal budget in the National Assembly.
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