Islamabad (TIP): Pakistan on Friday said it was not bound by the treaty on the prohibition of nuclear weapons as it failed to take into account the interests of all stakeholders. The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons entered into force on January 22, culminating a decades-long campaign aimed at preventing a repetition of the US atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of World War II.

Though hailed as a historic step by several nations, the treaty was opposed by the world’s nuclear-armed countries, including the US, China, Russia, the UK and India. Japan also didn’t support the pact.

The treaty, which was adopted in July 2017, was “negotiated outside the established UN disarmament negotiating forums”, Pakistan’s Foreign Office said in a statement. “Accordingly, Pakistan does not consider itself bound by any of the obligations enshrined in this treaty. Pakistan stresses that this treaty neither forms a part of, nor contributes to the development of customary international law in any manner,” it said.

The statement noted that none of the nuclear armed states, including Pakistan, took part in the negotiations of the treaty which “failed to take on board the legitimate interests of all the stakeholders” and many non-nuclear armed states have also refrained from becoming parties to the agreement.

The foreign ministry underlined that the UN General Assembly at its first special session devoted to nuclear disarmament in 1978 had agreed by consensus that in the adoption of disarmament measures, the right of each state to security should be kept in mind.

It also agreed that at each stage of the disarmament process the objective would be undiminished security for all states at the lowest possible level of armaments and military forces, the ministry said. This objective, it said, can only be achieved as a cooperative and universally agreed undertaking, through a consensus-based process involving all the relevant stakeholders, which results in equal and undiminished security for all states. PTI