Pakistan and India Rebuff U.S. Proposal : Asia: The two rival nations are cool to Strobe Talbott’s plan for reducing danger of nuclear war.

Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott opened talks Thursday on his first overseas trip as America’s No. 2 diplomat, but India and Pakistan gave a frigid welcome to proposals he carried for reducing the danger of nuclear war between them.

Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, citing national honor, said she could never agree to constrain her country’s “peaceful nuclear program” if India were not made to do the same.

“If we are unilaterally pressed for the capping, it will be discriminatory and Pakistan will not agree to it,” Bhutto was quoted by Pakistani news services as saying in Islamabad, the Pakistani capital.

In New Delhi, where Talbott met with India’s foreign and finance ministers, government officials all but ruled out any two-country arrangement with Pakistan for an end to production of fissile materials or for verification inspections.

“We’ve always taken the line that bilateral or regional approaches don’t work,” External Affairs Ministry spokesman Shiv Shankar Mukherjee said.

The impasse showed the formidable challenges facing Talbott, a former Time magazine journalist known for his expertise on Russia and superpower disarmament, as he ventures into the thicket of Indo-Pakistani relations.

“It is no coincidence that Secretary of State (Warren) Christopher would ask me to come to South Asia on my first overseas trip as deputy secretary of state,” Talbott said on arrival in New Delhi on Wednesday evening. “I have come here to listen and to learn firsthand about India’s global and regional concerns.

“But I also want to share with my hosts the Clinton Administration’s approach to the world, to this region and to this country . . . with which we cherish very good relations and very high hopes for the development of our relations for the future,” Talbott said.

Despite his upbeat remarks, U.S. relations with both countries have been deteriorating in recent months. In India’s case, the major cause seems to have been statements by U.S. officials, including President Clinton, that Indian officials and the press have found insulting or insensitive.

For Pakistan, the chief irritant is the Pressler Amendment, which bars U.S. military and economic aid if there are U.S. suspicions that the Islamabad government is developing nuclear weapons. The amendment, in effect since 1990, has blocked delivery of U.S.-made fighters that Pakistan has already purchased.

The gist of the plan being carried by Talbott is that the United States will waive the Pressler Amendment once, allowing delivery of 38 F-16s already purchased by Pakistan, in exchange for a verifiable cap to Pakistan’s effort to build nuclear bombs.

Bhutto’s prickly comments to reporters in the Parliament building in Islamabad appeared to mean that Talbott, who is scheduled to fly from New Delhi to the Pakistani capital today, has no chance of using the F-16s as bargaining leverage.

“Pakistan has paid for the planes, and the United States should either deliver the planes or return the money,” Bhutto said.

To further complicate matters, Indian External Affairs Minister Dinesh Singh and Foreign Secretary Krishnan Srinivasan strongly opposed the U.S. intention to provide even more nuclear-capable aircraft to a country with which India has fought three wars since independence.

“Sophisticated weapons acquired by Pakistan have been used only against India and, therefore, transfer of F-16s to Pakistan would be a matter of deep concern,” said an Indian statement summarizing the talks. It reiterated India’s opposition to “discriminatory” approaches to non-proliferation.

Talbott is known to be carrying sweeteners to offer India, almost certainly including greater access to U.S.-made high technology. But without a firm commitment from Pakistan, it was unclear how the Americans could lure the Indians into any agreement limiting stocks of nuclear weapons.

One potential approach is broadening the scope of the negotiations, as India also considers China a potential nuclear adversary.

It is the rancorous Indo-Pakistani territorial dispute over Kashmir and the possibility of its escalation into a full-blown war that U.S. officials cite as the reason behind their attempts at achieving a nuclear freeze on the subcontinent.