Pakistan paper sees sanctions as unjust

The Pakistani press has condemned sanctions

The Pakistani independent daily newspaper The Nation has described international sanctions against Pakistan as unjust, because it says Pakistan did not initiate the series of nuclear tests in the subcontinent.

It also said sanctions lacked moral authority, because the main nuclear powers retained their weapons.

Excerpt from editorial article 'Chirac's View' in The Nation

Whatever the views of the big powers, the fact remains that sanctions against Pakistan are inherently unjust since it is not the instigator of the current nuclear confrontation in the subcontinent.

Its tests were essentially defensive in nature, having waited for a meaningful response from the international community to India's nuclear adventurism, which unfortunately failed to materialise.

Pakistan could not be expected, in the face of the [Indian] BJP government's belligerence following India's nuclear tests, to have surrendered its inherent right of self-defence.

Sanctions in any case lack moral authority in the face of the big five's continuing efforts to maintain their nuclear monopoly, which translates into world hegemony.

BBC Monitoring (http://www.monitor.bbc.co.uk), based in Caversham in southern England, selects and translates information from radio, television, press, news agencies and the Internet from 150 countries in more than 70 languages.