Nuclear bid will continue: Bhutto

Wednesday, October 20, 1993 - 10:00

Nuclear bid will continue: Bhutto

Should Benazir Bhutto and her Pakistan People's Party succeed in forming Pakistan's next government once counting from the October 6 general election is completed, Pakistan's program to acquire nuclear weapons will continue.

The PPP won the largest number of parliamentary seats in the national elections. Speaking to the French newspaper Le Monde on October 9, Bhutto said the nuclear program "will be continued because Pakistan cannot allow India to have an atom bomb while we stay out of the running".

Pakistan claims its nuclear research program is for peaceful purposes only. Bhutto said she hoped France would supply a nuclear power station which had been agreed but which Paris subsequently suspended.

Bhutto said she wanted to introduce a social democratic regime in which free enterprise would be encouraged.

From GLW issue 119