Pak Nukes and missiles for defensive purpose: Musharraf

Playing down the nuclear rhetoric, Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf today said his country's nuclear and missile capabilities were defensive in nature and were acquired not by "choice" but due to "threats and compulsion".

"Our nuclear and missile potential is defensive in nature and is a deterrence. It has no offensive designs against anybody," Musharraf said while addressing a gathering of scientists here.

Claiming that Pakistan has emerged as a nuclear state with indigenous missile capability due to dedication of its scientists, he said "this achievement is not by choice but has been through threat and compulsion Pakistan was facing".

He praised Pakistani scientists for coming up to the expectations in accepting and responding to the challenges thrown by India by conducting nuclear tests in 1974 and in 1998.

"The challenges were responded by our scientists to restore strategic balance, (in the region), state run APP newsagency quoted him as saying.

Islamabad, June 24 , 2002 (PTI)