Pakistan "fully capable" of securing nuclear arms

Pakistan is capable of ensuring the security of its nuclear arsenal and a report it is negotiating "understandings" for U.S. units to augment the weapons' safety was "absurd", a top Pakistani commander said.

The security of Pakistan's nuclear weapons and facilities has been brought into question by an increasingly violent Islamist insurgency, though the United States has repeatedly said it has confidence in Pakistan's ability to protect them.

The New Yorker magazine reported in its latest issue Pakistan and the United States were negotiating "highly sensitive understandings" that would allow specially trained U.S. units to augment security for the Pakistani weapons "in case of a crisis".

The Pakistani military's Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee chairman, General Tariq Majid, rejected the report as "absurd and plain mischievous".

"There is absolutely no question of sharing or allowing any foreign individual, entity or a state, any access to sensitive information about our nuclear assets," Majid said in a statement issued late on Monday.

Quoting an unidentified former senior U.S. intelligence official, the New Yorker said Pakistanis had given Washington "a virtual look at the number of warheads, some of their locations, and their command-and-control system".

But Majid, describing himself as "overall custodian of the development of our strategic programme", said the United States knew only as "much as they can guess and nothing more".

Analysts say Pakistan's nuclear installations are so well guarded militants would find it very hard to storm them.

But the sophistication of recent attacks, including one on the army's headquarters in Rawalpindi last month, and their proximity to Pakistan's nuclear infrastructure suggested the risk, while low, remained a cause for worry.

The New Yorker said the consultations had been kept secret because of growing antipathy towards the United States in Pakistan, where many people believe the United States wants to confiscate the nuclear weapons.