‘Junta with nukes’: NSA files show Bush, Putin were worried about Pak’s arsenal

In a September 16, 2005, meeting, the two leaders expressed mutual alarm regarding evidence that nuclear technology had transferred from Pakistan to Iran.

Newly declassified documents reveal that former US president George W Bush and Russian president Vladimir Putin shared anxieties regarding the stability of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal, with Putin bluntly characterising the nation as a “junta with nuclear weapons” and Bush predicting that China would eventually become a significant threat to Russian interests.

Russian President Vladimir Putin. (via REUTERS)

The memorandums of conversation, released this week by the National Security Archive, offer a verbatim look at private exchanges between the two leaders from 2001 to 2008. While much