Ike, any chance you see this happening?
US wants India and Pakistan to give up nukes
by Iftikhar Gilani
dailytimes.com.pk
NEW DELHI: In the run-up to the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) summit, the United States is pushing India and Pakistan to sign an agreement declaring South Asia a nuclear-free region.
For the past week, US officials in Washington have been briefing South Asian diplomats, particularly from smaller nations, to pressure India and Pakistan to sanitise the region from nuclear arsenal. Quoting officials in Washington, The Telegrah reported that the proposal had become very urgent following conclusions by American non-proliferation officials that Pakistan sold nuclear secrets a decade and a half ago to Iran - a country defined by President George W Bush as part of the “axis of evil”.
Piqued a newspaper article by questioning the government for interrogating top Pakistani nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan and other scientists, President Pervez Musharraf lamented before a gathering of newspaper publishers that he was not in a position to tell what these scientists have done.
The Americans believe that they cannot unilaterally demand a rollback by Pakistan without asking India to do so also. One American non-proliferation official told the newspaper last week that Washington has “absolutely no problems” with India’s record of export controls or of non-proliferation involving the Third World countries.
But the official acknowledged that forcing Pakistan to give up nuclear weapons while allowing India to keep them would be tantamount to pronouncing a death sentence on Mr Musharraf politically and perhaps otherwise.
On account of the intense pressure from Washington on this score, Mr Musharraf found it necessary to tell Pakistanis on Monday that “there is no pressure whatsoever on me to roll back the nuclear and missile programme, we are not rolling back, there is no question, these are our national interests and only a traitor will think of rolling back”.
Mr Musharraf has been forced in the last few days to take several steps, which would have been unthinkable even a few months ago. To start with, about a fortnight ago, Mr Musharraf ordered the removal of giant replicas of Pakistan’s nuclear capable missiles to tone down the country’s nuclear and missile profile. US officials have told South Asian diplomats that what they would like to see is an agreement among countries in the region on the lines of the Treaty of Tlatelolco.
The Americans are likely to work on India through Nepal, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, all of which have voted at the UN in favour of creating a nuclear weapons-free zone in South Asia. |
