US assures Pak nuke arsenal safe

Washington, Sept. 8: As fresh fears are being voiced about the safety of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal, the United States has said it feels that the security arrangement are “sufficient and adequate.”
The American defence secretary Robert Gates also said that Islamabad had given “insurances” about the safety net for its nuclear arsenal.
Washington is “quite comfortable that the security arrangements for the Pakistani nuclear capabilities are sufficient and adequate,” Mr Gates said in an interview to the Qatar-based Al Jazzera news agency.
Asked if the Americans have guarantees to cover the safety of Pakistani nuclear weapons, the US defence secretary said “it’s based both on our own understanding of the security arrangements that the Pakistanis have for their weapons and their capabilities, their laboratories and so on.”
“We have also been given insurances by the Pakistanis on this,” he said.
Asked about whether he was 100 per cent satisfied that the Pakistani intelligence had stopped lending a hand of support to Taliban, Mr Robert Gates sought to side-step the issue by merely saying that Washington and Islamabad were working for the same goals