UN General Assembly
1996

encouraged by his positive response. Unfortunately, the new Government persisted with the strategy of a sham election in occupied Jammu and Kashmir. The Kashmir dispute has led to four direct or indirect wars between India and Pakistan between 1947 and 1971. India has the third-largest army in the world today, almost all of which is deployed against my country Pakistan. South Asia lacks a regional security system. We in Pakistan have made several proposals for conventional arms control: first, the negotiation of a mutually agreed ratio of forces; secondly, measures to prevent the possibility of a surprise attack; and thirdly, the adoption of agreed principles for conventional arms control in South Asia. Over the past 30 years, Pakistan has formulated a series of proposals to contain proliferation of nuclear and missile technology in South Asia. All along, India argued that it opposed bilateral or regional measures and would accept only a global non-proliferation policy. The Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty is exactly the kind of global measure for non-proliferation and disarmament that India had been championing for 40