The Telegraph - London - 09/20/98
By Julian West in Islamabad
THE nuclear arms race between India and Pakistan appears to have entered a more deadly phase. On the eve of talks between President Clinton and Pakistan's Prime Minister, Nawaz Sharif, over the country's nuclear programme, secret reports suggest that both countries are set to test more missiles and that Pakistan has
received shipments of weapons material from North Korea.
Intelligence reports circulated to senior officials in the Clinton administration show that the deliveries of warhead canisters were made to Pakistan's nuclear establishment, the Khan Research Laboratories, one month after its nuclear tests in May.
According to the reports, aircraft containing the canisters and components for missile production were spotted in Pakistan. Satellite spy photographs also disclosed increased activity at the Khan Laboratories' missile production and assembly plant, suggesting that Pakistan has stepped up production of its nuclear-capable Ghauri missile.
An independent military analyst in Islamabad, Shireen Mazari, said last week that Pakistan was "well into production of the Ghauri". She said Pakistan also had a number of reactors capable of producing
highly-enriched uranium for nuclear weapons. A Chinese-built reactor, capable of producing weapons-grade plutonium, has been completed recently, although it is not believed to be operational yet.
The continuing military co-operation between Pakistan and North Korea, which is considered one of the world's most dangerous and unstable nations, is of grave concern to Washington. Only last month North Korea fired what was thought at first to be a missile but turned out to be failed satellite launch. Unlike India, which has
developed its own nuclear and missile programmes with initial help only from Russia, Pakistan has long relied on technical assistance and components smuggled in from companies in the United States and Europe. With the break-down of the Soviet Union and the dire economic conditions in North Korea, it now appears that Pakistan is receiving most of its supplies from those two regions.
A further US intelligence report discloses that Pakistan received recently a shipment of Russian weapons-grade steel, believed to be for its missile programme, from a North Korean company, the Changowang Sinyong Corporation, also known as the North Korea Mining Development Trading Corporation.
Pakistan is also believed to be negotiating supplies of mass spectrometers, lasers and carbon fibre, used in missile guidance systems, from Russian manufacturers, via a Pakistani trading company with long-standing interests in the former Soviet Union.
While Pakistan presses ahead with production of its Ghauri missile, India, which tested nuclear weapons shortly before Pakistan, in May, is also forging ahead with its nuclear development programme with a series of
missile tests. Two weeks ago, India conducted tests of its Akash and Trishul surface-to-air anti-aircraft missiles. It has said that it will soon be ready to test the Agni II, a longer range version of the Agni I, both of which are intercontinental ballistic missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads.
A naval version of the medium-range 150km - 250km surface-to-surface Prithvi I and II, designed to be launched from a submarine and, like the earlier Prithvis, nuclear-capable, is also due to be tested soon.
The news that India and Pakistan are developing missile delivery systems for their nuclear weapons, following the escalation of tensions in Kashmir, alarms the West. India and Pakistan have fought two of their three wars over Kashmir, which is now considered to be one of the world's most likely nuclear flashpoints. Analysts also
fear that India might be racing to develop its expensive nuclear programme - which requires sophisticated command and control systems - at the expense of its conventional arms programme.
A Western defence analyst said: "If all funds are siphoned into this programme, weakening conventional capabilities and leaving only the nuclear option, you have a very dangerous situation. The international
community is extremely worried by that scenario."
America, which has termed possible nuclear war in the sub-continent as "catastrophic, not only in terms of loss of life but in its potential to lower the threshold of nuclear use in other parts of the world", is pressing India and Pakistan to sign the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. |
