A day after US Secretary of State John Kerry asked visiting Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to limit his country’s nuclear programme, Pakistan’s envoy to the United Nations, Maleeha Lodhi, rejected the demand. Instead, she said that India should be asked to limit its nuclear programme, thus hinting that India’s nuclear programme poses a threat to Pakistan.

What Lodhi very conveniently ignored is that India is committed to its ‘no first use’ policy enunciated in 2003. Thus, India’s nuclear arsenal poses no threat to Pakistan unless the latter launches a nuclear strike on India. What Lodhi, and all those who ask India to cap its nuclear programme, also forget is that India has never initiated any military action against any country.

Pakistan, a rogue state which many countries around the world look upon as a cradle of terrorism, has repeatedly waged wars on India. Pakistan believes in exporting terror to not only India but also Afghanistan and even its close ally China as a matter of state policy. Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal is not secure and the risk of it being infiltrated into by its domiciled terrorists is real and present.

So the US and other countries ought to not only ask Pakistan to limit its nuclear programme but dismantle it. Pakistan’s nuclear programme is a threat to the free world, not just India.