- CHICAGO (AFP) - Pakistani
President Pervez Musharraf has accused India of dramatically increasing
its stockpile of conventional weapons, jeopardising the volatile power
balance in the region.
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- Musharraf claimed yesterday that India had increased
its defence budget by 50 per cent in the past three years, with spending
on high-tech imports, such as surveillance systems and anti-missile systems
reaching 4.5 billion dollars annually.
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- "They will soon be the biggest arms purchasers in
the world," he told a gathering of business leaders at a luncheon
organised by the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations.
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- With 95 per cent of Indian forces deployed against Pakistan,
the arms buildup threatened the precarious balance of power between the
two nuclear powers and should not go unchecked, especially since Islamabad
froze its defence expenditures at the level they were three years ago,
he argued.
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- "The visible tilt in conventional arms balance between
India and Pakistan has dangerous portents and must be checked," he
said.
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