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Around 2,000 participants are attending the quadrennial event at the IAEA headquarters to discuss commitments, actions and the way forward to strengthen nuclear security.

KARACHI: Pakistan on Monday provided an in-depth peek into its ‘stringent’ nuclear safety mechanisms as it participated in a global summit on nuclear security in Vienna.

Titled ‘Pakistan’s Nuclear Security Regime’, the booklet released alongside the International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA) third International Conference on Nuclear Security (ICONS) aims to demonstrate the country’s “commitment and contribution to the global objectives of nuclear security.”

“This step is part of Pakistan’s practice to share information on the measures taken to further strengthen nuclear security and to demonstrate the high-level attention that nuclear security continues to receive in Pakistan,” the Foreign Office said in a statement. It added that the document was being distributed among all ICONS participants.

The booklet, a copy of which The Express Tribune was able to obtain, outlines Pakistan’s nuclear safety regime in the form of three ‘pillars’, namely legislative and regulatory framework, state institutions and organisations, and the security systems and measures.

Laying out the first of these, the document explains that the legislative and regulatory framework includes “establishing independent regulatory bodies with adequate legal authority to fulfill their assigned nuclear security responsibilities,” such as the National Command Authority (NCA), Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC), Pakistan Nuclear Regulatory Authority (PNRA) and Strategic Export Control Division (SECDIV).

“In order to cover the entire spectrum of activities, the NCA Act was promulgated in 2010… [with] wide jurisdiction and adequate legal authority to regulate activities of various entities working within its domain,” the booklet states. It also highlights legal frameworks that existed prior to the NCA Act, such as the PAEC and PNRA ordinances, and the Strategic Export Control Act, which strengthens export controls on “sensitive and dual use goods/technologies related to nuclear and biological weapons and their means of delivery.”