Pakistan Will Test Nuclear Device
Filed at 3:38 p.m. EDT
By The Associated Press
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) -- Pakistan will test a nuclear device in response to India's five explosions despite earlier assurances to U.S. officials that no such decision had been made, Pakistan's foreign minister said Sunday.
Other Pakistani officials and a top U.S. envoy continued to deny that the leadership had agreed on whether to conduct its own tests. A U.S. delegation left Pakistan on Saturday saying the government had indicated no ''final or irrevocable'' decision had been made.
But Foreign Minister Gohar Ayub said Sunday that Pakistan's position had since hardened, sending the strongest signal yet that his country is ready to match India in kind.
''It's a matter of when, not if, Pakistan will test. The decision has already been taken by Cabinet,'' Ayub told The Associated Press in a telephone interview from his rural home in northwestern Pakistan.
''We have taken in view everything and discussed what it will cost us and we will go ahead,'' he said.
Pakistan has said its decision hinges on how hard the international community cracks down on India for its detonation of the underground nuclear devices last Monday and Wednesday.
Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif said Sunday that Pakistan needs only 12 hours of preparation to explode a nuclear device.
''We will be forced to test ... and no one can stop us from doing so,'' if the international community's response to India is weak, he told reporters outside his home in the Punjab provincial capital of Lahore.
Sharif did not say whether the government had decided on tests. On Friday, he told a U.S. delegation led by Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott that Pakistan was in no hurry to conduct nuclear tests.
Pakistan's information minister, Mushahid Hussain, said the country was still waiting and watching.
''Pakistan has not taken any definitive decisions,'' he said from Pakistan on CBS' ''Face the Nation.'' ''There is tremendous popular pressure in Pakistan for a test.''
Longtime rivals, India and Pakistan have fought three wars since 1948 and still engage in frequent border skirmishes.
Bill Richardson, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, also said Pakistan has not made a decision.
He reiterated U.S. appeals to Pakistan to avoid tests. ''If they take this positive step and not test, then the U.S. is willing to look at ways to help them,'' Richardson told ABC-TV.
The United States has been hinting at concessions and a lifting of longstanding sanctions, including the blocked sale of F-16 fighters, if Pakistan shows restraint on tests.
Pakistan has been increasingly critical of the international reaction to India's tests.
The leaders of the world's industrialized nations were divided over U.S.-led sanctions against India on Sunday as they wound up their summit meeting in Birmingham, England.
France, Russia and Britain refused to sign on to sanctions.
Ayub called the sanctions ''irrelevant'' and said the muted response only reinforced Pakistan's decision to test.
In a broadcast interview from the Birmingham summit, President Clinton warned he would have no choice but to implement tough financial sanctions against Pakistan if it does test.
Pakistan has been under some sanctions since 1990, when the United States cut off $650 million in military and humanitarian aid, saying Pakistan had a nuclear bomb.
U.S. spy satellites have reportedly picked up evidence that Pakistan is preparing a test site in Chagai in southwestern Baluchistan province, barely 30 miles from the border with Iran.
Meanwhile, Pakistani Foreign Secretary Shamshad Ahmed left Sunday for China -- Pakistan's long-time ally and the country Washington says has helped develop Pakistan's nuclear program.
China has denied the charges. |
