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NEW DELHI: The Ministry of outer affairs connected Friday said India shares a “wide-ranging strategical partnership” with Saudi Arabia, 1 that has “deepened considerably” successful caller years.
Responding to queries connected the Saudi Arabia–Pakistan defence pact, MEA spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said: “We expect that this strategical concern volition support successful caput communal interests and sensitivities.”His remarks came aft Riyadh and Islamabad signed a “Strategic Mutual Defense Agreement” earlier this week, triggering speculation implicit whether Saudi Arabia could summation entree to Pakistan’s atomic shield amid heightened tensions successful the Middle East.The pact, announced connected Wednesday, brings unneurotic Saudi Arabia’s fiscal clout and Pakistan’s military, the lone nuclear-armed unit successful the Muslim world. Few details person been disclosed, though Saudi officials person described it arsenic covering “all subject means.” Analysts told Reuters that the woody signals declining assurance successful the United States arsenic a semipermanent information guarantor for Gulf states.Pakistan’s defence curate Khawaja Muhammad Asif maintained that atomic weapons were “not connected the radar” of the agreement, saying: “We person nary volition of utilizing this pact for immoderate aggression. But if the parties are threatened, past evidently this statement volition go operative.” He added the model could beryllium extended to different Gulf nations. Riyadh, however, has antecedently stated it would prosecute atomic weapons if Iran obtained them.