Pakistan Still Seeking A-Weapons, Bush Is Told : Foreign policy: Rep. Solarz suggests that Congress should cut off the U.S. aid program.

The chairman of the House Foreign Affairs subcommittee on Asian and Pacific Affairs said Sunday that Pakistan seems to be going ahead with plans to obtain nuclear weapons and suggested that Congress should cut off the $600-million-a-year U.S. aid program to Islamabad.

In a letter to President Bush, Rep. Stephen J. Solarz (D-N.Y.) asserted that Pakistan has been violating pledges it made to the United States last year to limit its nuclear program. Under existing law, U.S. aid to Pakistan can continue only if the President assures Congress in writing that Pakistan does not have nuclear weapons.

The congressional threat poses an awkward foreign policy problem for the Bush Administration. For months, the United States has been working actively to prevent an outbreak of war between Pakistan and India in Kashmir. At the same time, the Administration is grateful for Pakistan’s pledge of 5,000 troops to help U.S. forces in Saudi Arabia.

For years, Pakistan has insisted that it does not have nuclear weapons.

“We do not have a nuclear weapons program,” Tarik Fatemi, deputy chief of mission at the Pakistani embassy in Washington, said Sunday. “We have given categorical assurances to the (Bush) Administration that ours is a peaceful program. I’m sure the United States has the means and the capabilities to verify this.”

Solarz said in an interview Sunday that most of the information about Pakistan’s nuclear program is classified and cannot be made public. But he said there have been recent reports in the European press that Pakistan is continuing to enrich uranium to the levels that would be needed for a nuclear bomb.

Early this year, France sold a nuclear power plant to Pakistan, ending a 14-year embargo on the sale of nuclear technology to the country. Pakistani officials have said that this plant--and other nuclear technology Pakistan has sought from China and the Soviet Union--are aimed at helping Pakistan meet its growing needs for electricity.

A year ago, Bush formally certified to Congress that Pakistan did not have nuclear weapons and therefore was eligible for U.S. aid. The President must send new assurances to Congress soon for Pakistan to keep on receiving American aid in the next fiscal year, which begins Oct. 1.

“On the basis of a number of reports I’ve received from unclassified sources, I have the impression that Pakistan’s commitments to respect the various markers we set last year have not been met,” Solarz said in his letter to the President.

The congressman also complained that the CIA has repeatedly delayed briefing his subcommittee about Pakistan’s nuclear program. These postponements by the CIA were made “at the request of the Administration,” he said.

Solarz said he believes that these delays stem from “the reluctance to disclose that Pakistan was engaging in these (nuclear) activities.” The CIA has finally agreed to testify about Pakistan before his subcommittee later this week.

The Carter Administration once cut off all aid to Pakistan because of concern about its nuclear program. But the United States restored the aid after the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in 1979 and Pakistan became the base of operations for Afghan resistance groups. After the Soviet Union removed its troops from Afghanistan last year, Pakistan’s strategic importance to the United States began to diminish.

Relations between the United States and Pakistan also have been strained by Pakistani President Ghulam Ishaq Khan’s decision Aug. 6 to dismiss Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto and her government on grounds of alleged abuses of power. The Pakistani president installed a caretaker government until new elections take place Oct. 24.