In Pakistan, U.S. Envoy Upbeat on Arms Limits : Asia: Strobe Talbott’s mission was to forestall nuclear brinkmanship by Islamabad or India. ‘Much was accomplished,’ he says.

Despite some blunt public statements by Pakistan, Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott voiced “high optimism” Saturday as he ended discussions there on regional nuclear arms control.

“I have just completed a very good day of talks in Islamabad,” Talbott said after lunching with Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto and meeting other Pakistani officials. “Much was accomplished today.”

In his maiden voyage abroad as Secretary of State Warren Christopher’s top deputy, Talbott flew into the subcontinent Wednesday to try to stem the rot in U.S. relations with India and Pakistan and to promote a plan for preventing them from engaging in nuclear brinkmanship.

The Clinton Administration blueprint calls for separate but parallel approaches to India and Pakistan to encourage both to cap their nuclear programs.

In New Delhi, where Talbott met Prime Minister P. V. Narasimha Rao on Friday, the reception was far from enthusiastic. Talbott was told that “we don’t believe third parties should look for equality, parity or balance between Pakistan and India,” one official source said.

India specifically objected to the U.S. offer to sell Pakistan 38 F-16 fighter planes in exchange for a verifiable freeze on Islamabad’s nuclear program. U.S. experts believe the Pakistanis have enriched enough uranium to have manufactured the cores for seven Hiroshima-style bombs.

On the eve of Talbott’s arrival in Islamabad, Bhutto flatly ruled out agreeing to unilateral inspections of her country’s nuclear facilities as a way to obtain the high-performance warplanes, which Pakistan has paid for. U.S. law has prohibited delivery of the jets because Pakistan is suspected of building nuclear weapons.

In Talbott’s discussions with Bhutto, President Farooq Leghari, Foreign Minister Sardar Assef Ahmed Ali and others, a more nuanced position than the one publicly expressed by the prime minister reportedly emerged.

The Pakistanis indicated that they are not opposed to outside inspections in principle. Instead, they reportedly said, a mechanism has to be devised to keep India from learning of the exact magnitude and achievements of a secretive program that the Islamabad government has always maintained is exclusively peaceful.

Also, the Pakistanis reportedly did not reject the tit-for-tat bargain with the United States that would lead to a verifiable cap on their nuclear program but said India would have to commit to a similar arrangement so they could sell the deal to their public.

New Delhi’s stand has been that it cannot agree to nuclear restrictions that do not constrain China, its much more powerful neighbor.

Pakistan’s response has been to propose a disarmament conference attended by China, the United States, Russia, Pakistan and India. But Indian officials did not approve that proposal in their talks with Talbott.

India and Pakistan have acrimonious relations caused largely by their longstanding territorial dispute over Jammu-Kashmir. Talbott made it clear that the conflict will make agreement on a nuclear cap difficult to achieve.

“There is much on that subject that needs to be done,” he told reporters after his talks with the Pakistanis. But he said he will leave Islamabad today “with quite a high optimism.”

Talbott, the highest-ranking American to visit India since October, 1985, stressed to the Indians that he wants to turn over a “new leaf” in the often troubled relationship between the two countries.