Can trigger-happy Pakistan be trusted with its nukes after bizarre twitter feud goes ballistic?

A twitter feud between a Greek journalist and an alleged Pak army officer has turned ugly after the latter apparently threatened Greece with an atomic strike unless the scribe deleted his tweets.

The bizarre incident on the internet has raised a legitimate question on whether a thin-skinned Pakistan can be trusted with its atomic arsenal.

It all began when Greek journalist, Paul Antonopoulos tweeted about Pakistan wanting to buy submarine accessories from Greece at a time when the country is facing one of the worst economic crises, says a report published by website OpIndia.

Antonopoulos’ tweet ending with a “beggars will be beggars” seems to have infuriated what could be a Pakistani senior army officer.

A verified twitter account that identifies itself as Faisal Naseer in an over-the-top response threatened Antonopoulos, and then menacingly told him that Pakistan is a nuclear power, possessing missiles ‘that can reach Greece’.

Refusing to surrender, the Greek scribe reminded Pakistan of its nuclear overreach by overestimating the range of its delivery systems.

A furious Naseer then went even further, hubristically pointing out that a F-16 armed with a nuclear bomb can attack Greece. He also mocked Greece’s NATO membership, pointing out that in response to the Taliban’s takeover of Kabul, the alliance lost to a “ragtag” force armed with “basic weapons” in Afghanistan.

Ultimately Naseer threatened Antonopoulos, to remove his derogatory” tweets by midnight, saying that the Greek foreign ministry had been informed. Alongside, he shared a gif of a nuclear bomb to reinforce his threat.

The twitter spat took place at a time when Greece had been miffed by Pakistan’s de facto alliance with Turkey, opening up deep historical wounds. So, when the Pakistanis apparently sought submarine batteries from Greece, it triggered a negative response.

The OpIndia article says that cannot the website cannot confirm whether the Twitter account Faisal Naseer is actually of Pakistani army personnel. “It is a verified account on Twitter but with Elon Musk’s whims, it is hard to confirm if it is a legacy verified account or a Blue subscriber.”

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