MOSCOW (Sputnik) — The United States is encouraging a nuclear arms race between India and Pakistan instead of promoting peace talks between the sides, an International Peace Bureau (IPB) co-president told Sputnik on Friday.
"The United States were supportive of India becoming a new nuclear power country, even helped them in this process by sending the technology. At the same time, the US is one of the closest allies of Pakistan. Pakistani secret services and the Pakistani army could not survive without the US help," Reiner Braun, who is also a member of International Association of Lawyers Against Nuclear Arms, said.
"The United States have triggered both sides and encourage them. What the United States are not doing – they are not pressurizing the sides and pushed sides for the negotiations," Braun added.
Currently, Pakistan has the sixth-largest nuclear arsenal in the world, behind the United States, Russia, France, China and the United Kingdom.
Pakistan joined the club of nuclear powers in 1998, a few weeks after India, Islamabad's main regional rival, after successfully completing its own nuclear weapons tests. Both countries did not accede to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.
Relations between the two countries have been strained since the end of the British rule. Both India and Pakistan are laying claims to the Jammu and Kashmir region.
