March 4, 2004 ☼ Foreign Affairs
This is an archived blog post from The Acorn.
Pakistan’s top military official has offered to share unspecified military assistance and “nuclear power” with Nigeria’s armed forces, the defence ministry said.
Gen. Muhammad Aziz Khan, chairman of Pakistan’s joint chiefs of staff, told Nigerian Defence Minister Rabiu Kwankwaso that Pakistan was “working out the dynamics” to help Nigeria’s armed forces “to strengthen its military capability and to acquire nuclear power,” Nigeria’s Defence Ministry said in a statement issued yesterday.[Outlook/PTI] As is usual the (clueless) official Pakistani spokesman issues his usual response (see italics)
Pakistan denies Nigerian Nuclear claim (Updated at 1330 PST) ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Thursday rejected Nigerian claims that its armed forces chief offered this week to help the African state acquire nuclear power.
‘We are denying it. This is baseless. He said nothing of this kind,’ military spokesman Major General Shaukat Sultan said. Nigeria’s defence ministry has accused the chairman of Pakistan’s joint chiefs of staff General Muhammad Aziz Khan of offering to ‘strengthen (Nigeria’s) military capability and acquire nuclear power.’
In a statement it said Khan made the offer with Nigeria’s Defence Minister Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso in Abuja.[The News/Jang] And the Nigerians are blaming it on the printer’s devil.
“The reference to nuclear power in the statement earlier issued was a mistake, a typographical error,” defence ministry spokesman Bellu Nwachukwu, told AFP, confirming the reaction of the Pakistani authorities to the issue.[Hi Pakistan]
If ever he did make this offer, Gen Aziz is either extremely stupid or more dangerously, signalling his intent to undermine Musharraf. It will be interesting to see how Musharraf deals with Gen Aziz after this.
If you would like to share or comment on this, please discuss it on my GitHub
Previous © Copyright 2003-2024. Nitin Pai. All Rights Reserved.