Joe Biden: Pakistan is my greatest international concern
Joe Biden and US president Barack Obama
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Thursday, 11, Feb 2010 12:56
By Matthew Champion.
US vice president Joe Biden has admitted he sees instability in Pakistan as a greater threat to international security than Afghanistan, Iran or Iraq.
Pakistan has faced a tumultuous last few years during which entirely civilian rule was restored, a state of emergency imposed, former prime minister Benazir Bhutto assassinated and a massive government offensive launched against Taliban-linked militants in the country's northern tribal areas.
Speaking on Larry King Live, Mr Biden said that the combined effect was to make Pakistan his "greatest concern".
"It's a big country," he said. "It has nuclear weapons that are able to be deployed. It has a real significant minority of radicalised population. It is not a completely functional democracy in the sense we think about it."
The vice president, who spent the decade before joining the White House at the forefront of the Senate foreign relations committee, also spoke to CNN's Larry King about the threat posed by Iran's nuclear programme and the unlikelihood of a second 9/11.
Describing Iran's decision to enrich uranium to 20 per cent as a "real concern" he added: "If they continue on the path of nuclear weapons and were able to gain even a modicum of the capability, then I worry what that does; what pressure that puts on Saudi Arabia, on Egypt, on Turkey. To acquire nuclear weapons, that's very destabilising."
On the chances of a massive al-Qaida attack similar in scale to those carried out on September 11th 2001 taking place again Mr Biden said it was "unlikely, in my view".
The vice president conceded that "there would be attempts", however, probably in the vein of Nigerian student Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, 23, who is accused of trying to blow up a Detroit-bound flight with explosives sewn into his underwear.
"If you see what's happening, particularly with al-Qaida and the Arabian Peninsula, they have decided to move in the direction of much more small bore but devastatingly frightening attacks," he concluded.