Despite U.S. Pleas, Pakistan Weighs Nuclear Options

After failing to win international backing for tough punitive measures against New Delhi in the wake of India’s nuclear tests last week, the United States on Saturday dangled the prospect of significant rewards for Pakistan if it refrains from testing atomic weapons of its own.

But in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, crushing disappointment that the world’s eight most-powerful leaders had offered nothing more than a verbal condemnation of India seemed to heighten prospects that Pakistan soon will try to match the nuclear prowess of its regional adversary.

Pakistani Foreign Secretary Shamshad Ahmad said the light treatment accorded India by the Group of 8 leaders meeting here in Britain made it imperative that his nation act on its own to safeguard its security.

He stopped short of declaring that Pakistan will detonate a nuclear device but made it clear that there were few other options.

“We cannot act with madness as the Indians have,” Ahmad said. “But Pakistan’s security has been directly threatened. It will respond in a manner consistent with the magnitude of the threat that faces us.”

His comments, coupled with the general mood in Islamabad, generated a sense of fading hope that a regional nuclear arms race can be avoided.

Here in Birmingham, where President Clinton and the leaders of Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and Russia have gathered for the G-8 summit, U.S. officials struggled to avoid just that, hinting that Pakistan has much to gain if it refrains from conducting a nuclear test.

“If they make that decision [not to test] . . . I think that they will capture the high ground in the long-standing regional struggle in South Asia,” National Security Advisor Samuel R. “Sandy” Berger told a news conference as the G-8 leaders concentrated on longer-term global challenges. The leaders on Friday condemned India’s decision to conduct nuclear tests; but facing opposition mainly from Russia and France, they could not reach a common position on punitive sanctions.

“I think the [Pakistanis’] relationships with many governments will change,” Berger added. “I suspect the attitude in our own Congress, which has been quite restrictive with respect to Pakistan, would then free up our capacity to cooperate with them more fully.”

Although Berger’s comments were held out as a potential reward to Islamabad for not testing, they constituted more of a sketchy vision of the possible than any definite U.S. commitment.

Clinton used his weekly radio address to reiterate his criticism of India, saying its nuclear testing has threatened “to spark a dangerous nuclear arms race in Asia.”

The U.S. package of stiff economic sanctions against India, together with Clinton’s rhetoric, the dispatch of Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott to Pakistan on Wednesday and Berger’s statement, were all seen as part of a larger U.S. effort to prevent other countries from following in India’s footsteps.

Berger hinted strongly that such a shift of sentiment might resolve a long-standing dispute surrounding Pakistan’s purchase of 28 high-performance F-16 military aircraft. Although Pakistan has paid more than $650 million for the planes it ordered eight years ago, the U.S. has refused to deliver them because of sanctions imposed on Islamabad for refusing to halt efforts to develop nuclear weapons.

The U.S. also has kept the money, a situation that Berger admitted “has resulted in what seems to be an unfairness.”

Berger would not specify if this would mean that the U.S. would deliver the planes, stating only that the two countries would resolve “the plane issue in a way that is satisfactory to Pakistan and the United States.”

Regional specialists believe that it is more likely that the U.S. would return the money than deliver new military strike planes into a region where tensions are high and the nightmare scenario of a regional nuclear war is a step closer. These specialists, however, believe that Berger and other administration officials dealing with the issue were being deliberately ambiguous about how the dispute might be resolved in order not to dash Pakistani hopes of getting the aircraft.

“I would have to believe--and based on some conversations I’ve had with senators in the last few days--that if Pakistan were not to test, that we would have a far greater chance to make inroads on [lifting or easing sanctions] in Congress, in a bipartisan way, than we have had before,” Berger said. “And I think it would be a welcomed development.”

White House Press Secretary Mike McCurry said Berger’s statement about the F-16s reflectedconversations that the national security advisor has had with members of Congress in recent days and the assessments of White House liaisons who have been canvassing Congress on the issue.

But Berger was not sure that this would be enough to prevent Pakistan from testing a weapon.

“It’s not been my sense here that the [Pakistanis] put a price tag on not testing,” he said. “This is going to be a decision that they make based upon their own judgment of their national interest.”

It was clear in Islamabad on Saturday that Pakistani leaders felt that they needed more than words to counter the impact of India’s nuclear testing.

Ahmad said U.S. appeals to refrain from exploding a nuclear device rang hollow because Washington could not guarantee Pakistan’s security.

For many Pakistanis, India’s five nuclear tests last week forced upon them an impossible choice: If they respond with a nuclear test of their own, they will face potentially devastating economic sanctions; if they fail to respond to India’s provocation, they could put their nation’s security at risk.

“If we do, we’re pilloried,” said Ahmad Iftikaar, a lawyer and senior leader of the Pakistan People’s Party. “If we don’t, we’re doomed.”

Many Pakistanis said their country, already one of the most impoverished, will likely suffer even more, regardless of what path it chooses. On one hand, the effect of U.S. economic sanctions--which are automatic under U.S. law if Pakistan conducts a nuclear test--have the potential to be far more damaging to Pakistan than sanctions will be to India.

Under the law, the United States would be required to oppose any new loans to Pakistan from the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. Pakistan has borrowed $4.4 billion from the World Bank and was recently granted a $1.5-billion IMF loan, which experts here regard as crucial to staving off economic collapse.

With defense spending and debt-service payments already totaling more than 80% of the national budget, Pakistan is in dire need of new loans.

“Pakistan is clearly more vulnerable on sanctions,” said Maleeha Lodhi, a Pakistani newspaper editor and former ambassador to the United States.

At the same time, many Pakistanis said Saturday that their country needs to respond forcefully to India’s challenge, to safeguard the nation’s security. They noted that when India’s Bharatiya Janata Party, or BJP, promised during an election campaign earlier this year to develop nuclear weapons, Pakistan was the only country to take the remarks seriously.

Pakistanis said that, unless their country responds swiftly to India’s provocation, New Delhi could be emboldened to try to conquer the Pakistani-occupied portion of Kashmir. The region, which is claimed by both India and Pakistan, has been the source of two of the three wars that the countries have fought since 1947.

Earlier this year, BJP leader Atal Behari Vajpayee, who is now prime minister, said publicly that all of Kashmir belongs to India.

“We will take back that part of Kashmir that is under Pakistan’s occupation,” he said at a February campaign rally in Bombay.

Speaking in his weekly radio address, broadcast from Birmingham, Clinton praised India for its history of vibrant democracy but added: “In this instance, India is on the wrong side of history.”

The underground blasts set off by India last week underscored the importance of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, Clinton said. He urged India to join the more than 145 nations that have signed the pact.

U.S. ratification of the treaty remains stalled in the Senate. But Clinton called on lawmakers to set aside their objections in the wake of India’s tests.

Marshall and Shogren reported from Birmingham; Filkins reported from Islamabad.

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