Clinton Presses Top Pakistani on Arms Race

President Clinton on Wednesday pressed Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, the leader of the world’s newest nuclear power, to help curb the escalating South Asia arms race. However, no breakthrough was reported.

White House officials said Sharif would not say when Pakistan intends to sign the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, as he promised at the United Nations in September, or when it will commit itself to stopping production of fissile material that could be used to produce nuclear weapons.

India has also refused to make those commitments. U.S.-led negotiations held separately with the regimes in Islamabad and New Delhi have stalled in recent weeks, despite Clinton’s decision last month to partially ease punishing economic sanctions that were imposed by the United States in May after India and then Pakistan tested nuclear devices.

The most recent round of talks with India, last month in Rome, “did not advance the process,” according to a senior U.S. official. The next round of talks with India is scheduled in New Delhi at the end of January.

Tensions between the neighboring nuclear powers remain dangerously high, with regular artillery duels across a U.N.-monitored cease-fire line in the disputed territory of Kashmir as well as on a remote Himalayan glacier.

This week, India launched its most extensive military exercises in a decade.

The government said the maneuvers, in the state of Rajasthan near the border with Pakistan, involve more than 60,000 soldiers, 300 tanks and 160 aircraft in what India’s military commander called “a review of our doctrine in the situation of nuclear balance.”

U.S. officials said they are trying to confirm news reports from New Delhi that India has moved medium-range Prithvi missiles close to the border for the first time as part of the 10-day maneuvers.

Pakistan, which has protested the exercises, denied Indian reports that it has mobilized 20,000 troops along its border in response to the Indian operation.

U.S. officials said neither nation is believed to have deployed nuclear warheads on its missiles or aircraft.

U.S. officials say India has a nuclear stockpile of about 65 warheads, Pakistan about 25.

U.S. and Pakistani officials said Sharif’s two-day working visit here is aimed at repairing the relationship that once made Islamabad one of Washington’s most crucial Cold War allies.

Pakistan served as the chief staging point for U.S.-backed guerrillas battling Soviet troops in Afghanistan in the 1980s, but the United States has cut or frozen most assistance since the Soviets pulled out in 1989.

One major element of tension in the relationship, however, may have been eased.

On Tuesday, New Zealand’s government announced plans to buy 28 U.S. fighter jets that Pakistan had originally ordered and paid for in 1990.

Congress has refused to allow Pakistan to take delivery of the jets because of concern over its nuclear program. The United States also refused to return Pakistan’s money because it already had been spent to build the planes.

New Zealand said it would acquire the jets in a 10-year buy-lease arrangement. A State Department spokesman said New Zealand has not formally made the offer and that officials were still unsure how much of any payment could be used to repay Pakistan.

Speaking to reporters Wednesday after his White House meeting with Clinton, Sharif said he had specifically asked the president to intervene in the Kashmir conflict, which he called the “root cause” of tensions between India and Pakistan. Both countries lay claim to the Himalayan region.

“Pakistan and India have never made any progress unless there was third-party mediation or involvement,” Sharif said.

In earlier remarks, however, Clinton said that Washington will not intervene in the Kashmir issue unless India also requests U.S. involvement. New Delhi has repeatedly refused any outside mediation, calling the issue an internal affair.

India and Pakistan have fought three wars, including two over Kashmir, since their creation as independent states in 1947.

Clinton said he still hopes to visit South Asia next year. A trip tentatively planned for last month was indefinitely postponed to show U.S. displeasure at the lack of progress on nuclear nonproliferation. A senior White House official said a Clinton visit is not likely now until the end of 1999.

Teresita Schaffer, head of the South Asia program at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies, said Sharif’s visit was important despite the lack of apparent progress.

“The ceremony is significant,” she said. “It’s a big deal for Nawaz Sharif to be received with great fanfare. I’m sure he considers it significant that he’s getting this treatment and the Indians aren’t.”