NEW YORK President Barrack Obama has said he is confident that Pakistan has secured its nuclear weapons, throwing cold water on Indias attempts to try and put focus on the safety of Pakistani arsenal at next weeks Nuclear Security Summit in Washington. I feel confident that Pakistan has secured its nuclear weapons. I am concerned about nuclear security all around the world, not just in Pakistan but everywhere, he said in an interview with The New York Times published Tuesday. Questioned whether he had taken any steps to ensure the safety of Pakistans nuclear weapons, Obama said he was not going to talk about the details of Islamabads nuclear programme. In New Delhi, Indian officials told reporters that Pakistans nuclear arsenal was high on Indias agenda when Prime Minister Manmohan Singh attends the summit. They said that Pakistans participation in the summit was good as it would bring greater focus on the security of nuclear material in the region. It was pointed out that the international community has expressed concerns about terror elements getting access to nuclear weapons in Pakistan. For India, they said, the geographical proximity of Pakistan and cross border terrorism makes it a very real threat. Obama said the conditions under which the United States will use nuclear weapons, even for self-defence, will be substantially narrowed as part of an imminent overhaul of American nuclear policy. Obama said an exception would be made for outliers like Iran and North Korea that have violated the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. But in a striking departure from the position taken by his predecessors, he said the US would explicitly commit for the first time to not use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear states that adhere to the nuclear treaty even if they attack with biological or chemical weapons. After a review of the nations nuclear weapons arsenal that has involved, among others, the Pentagon, the Department of Energy and the intelligence services, as well as the White House, Obamas much anticipated policy revamp comes as he prepares to fly to Prague on Thursday to sign the landmark Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (Start) with President Medvedev of Russia. The Obama administration has come under pressure from arms control analysts to redefine the circumstances in which the US might consider using nuclear weapons, and to state beyond doubt that the justification for keeping them is purely as a deterrent. In the interview, he stopped short of the hoped-for blanket declaration that the US would never be the first to use nuclear weapons - no first-use, as it is called. Arguing instead for a slower course of action, he said: We are going to want to make sure that we can continue to move towards less emphasis on nuclear weapons, to make sure that our conventional weapons capability is an effective deterrent in all but the most extreme circumstances. But he went further than expected in other areas, saying that the new strategy would renounce the development of any new nuclear weapons to set an example for moving the world towards making nuclear weapons obsolete. He said threats such as biological or chemical attacks could be deterred with a series of graded options, a combination of old and newly designed conventional weapons. Im going to preserve all the tools that are necessary in order to make sure that the American people are safe and secure, he said in the interview, which took place in the Oval Office. Asked about the threats posed by Iran and North Korea, Obama said he was convinced the course Iran was on would provide them with nuclear weapons capabilities, and added that it was clear that North Korea had moved from being simply a nuclear capable state to being a self-professed nuclear states. Rather than splitting hairs on this, I think that the international community has a strong sense of what it means to pursue civilian nuclear energy for peaceful purposes versus a weaponising capability, he said. He also said he hoped to use the treaty signing with Russia as a stepping-stone towards more ambitious reductions in nuclear arsenals. We are going to pursue opportunities for further reductions in our nuclear posture, working in tandem with Russia but also working in tandem with NATO as a whole, he said. Though there are questions whether Obamas changes will be far-reaching or mostly cosmetic, the much-anticipated announcement could build momentum before he signs a landmark arms-control treaty with Russia in Prague on Thursday and hosts a nuclear security summit in Washington next week. The Nuclear Posture Review is required by Congress from every US administration, but Obama set expectations high after he vowed to end Cold War thinking and won the Nobel Peace Prize in part for his vision of a nuclear-free world. Obama said last month the new plan, delayed by months of internal deliberations, would reduce the number and role of nuclear weapons in our national security strategy, even as we maintain a safe, secure and effective nuclear deterrent. Online adds: US President Barack Obama has said he is confident that Pakistan has secured its nuclear weapons. In the NYT interview, Obama said his new approach to nuclear non-proliferation is different from those of the Bush administration. When asked what he had done specifically to secure Pakistans nuclear weapons, Obama said: I am not going to talk about the details of Pakistans nuclear programme. Asked if he felt more assured than he was when he came to office that Pakistans nukes were safe from al-Qaeda and the Taliban, the US President said: I feel confident that Pakistan has secured its nuclear weapons. I am concerned about nuclear security all around the world, not just in Pakistan but everywhere.