Nuke safety: Obama does not rule out intervention in Pak

Leaving open the option of US intervention, President Barack Obama today said his country had "huge" strategic and security interests in making sure that Pakistan is stable and its nuclear weapons do not fall into militant hands.     

"We want to respect their sovereignty, but we also recognise that we have huge strategic interests — huge national security interests —in making sure that Pakistan is stable and that you don't end up having a nuclear-armed militant state," Obama said in a prime-time news conference marking the 100-day of his presidency.       

But Obama said he was confident that Pakistan's nuclear arsenal was secure, "because the Pakistani army, I think, recognises the hazards of those weapons falling into the wrong hands."       

When pressed whether the United States would intervene if Pakistan's nuclear arsenal were under threat, Obama, speaking at his third White House press conference since assuming office on January 20, said he would not respond to a "hypothetical question."       

"I am gravely concerned about the situation in Pakistan, not because I think that they're immediately going to be overrun and the Taliban would take over in Pakistan," Obama said.

"I'm more concerned that the civilian government there right now is very fragile," Obama said.  "I'm more concerned that the civilian government there right now is very fragile and don't seem to have the capacity to deliver basic services: schools, health care, rule of law, a judicial system that works for the majority of the people."  

At the same time, Obama said that the civilian government of President Asif Ali Zardari, who is to visit Washington next week, was unable to offer basic services that would ensure people's support and loyalty.  He also said that Pakistan's military had just recently started to change its traditional animosity towards India.  

"You're starting to see some recognition just in the last few days that the obsession with India as the mortal threat to Pakistan has been misguided and that their biggest threat right now comes internally," Obama said.  

Pakistan, the Muslim world's only nuclear weapons state, has been critical of US infringement on its sovereignty, particularly of regular drone attacks on high-value terror targets in its restive tribal region.