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US continues to preach to India, tags along Pakistan for good measure

US President Bill Clinton has called for a united approach by the international community to help India and Pakistan avoid a dangerous nuclear arms race in Asia.

''Our goal is to forge a common strategy (with five other nuclear powers) to move India and Pakistan back from their nuclear arms race and to begin to build a more peaceful, stable region,'' he told newsmen yesterday after consultations with secretary of state Madeleine Albright and his national security advisor Sandy Berger on the US agenda for a meeting of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council scheduled to take place in Geneva today to deal with the situation arising out of the nuclear tests conducted by India and Pakistan.

Putting the problem in ''its proper context,'' he pointed out their nuclear tests stood in stark contrast to the progress the world had made over the past several years in reducing stockpiles and containing the spread of nuclear weapons. ''It is also contrary to the ideals of non-violent democratic freedom and independence at the heart of Gandhi's struggle to end colonialism on the Indian subcontinent,'' he added.

President Clinton said, ''India and Pakistan are great nations with boundless potential, but developing weapons of mass destruction is self-defeating, wasteful, and dangerous. It will make their people poorer and less secure.''

''And, we must do more. We are determined to work with any countries who are willing to help us and we want very much to work with both India and Pakistan to help them resolve their differences and to restore a future of hope, not fear, to the region,'' he added.

Apparently conscious of India's demand for a time-bound programme within which the five nuclear powers -- the US, Russia. Britain, France and China -- should eliminate their weapons of mass destruction, the president said the United States and Russia were on their way to cutting nuclear arsenals by two-thirds from their cold war height.

Two years ago, President Clinton recalled, ''I was the first to sign this treaty (the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty) at the United Nations on behalf of the United States. The present situation in South Asia makes it all the more important that the (US) senate debate and vote on the CTBT without delay. The CTBT will strengthen our ability to deter and to detect, testing.''

The opposition Republican majority US Senate is unwilling to endorse the CTBT, a statutory requirement. ''If we are calling on other nations to act responsibly, America must set the example,'' Clinton added.

He expressed his appreciation for China for chairing the Geneva meeting and said this was further evidence of the important role China could play in meeting the challenges of the 21st century and the constructive Chinese leadership that would be essential to the long-term resolutions of issues involving South Asia.

President Clinton said this was ''an important example of how our engagement with China serves America's interests: stability in Asia, preventing the spread of weapons of mass destruction, combating international crime and drug trafficking, protecting the environment.''

''At the same time, we continue to deal forthrightly with China on those issues where we disagree -- notably, on human rights, and there have clearly been some concrete results as a result of this engagement as well,'' he added.

For these reasons, he said, he intends to renew China's most favoured nation trade status in the US. Since 1980, when MFN status was first extended to China, every Republican and Democratic president who had faced this issue had extended it. ''Not to renew would be to sever our economic and, to a large measure, our strategic relationship with China, turning our back on a fourth of the world at a time when our cooperation for world peace and security is especially important, in light of the recent events in South Asia,'' he added.

Later, Albright said the nuclear tests by India and Pakistan had posed an immediate threat to international peace and security, and as permanent members of the security council -- the United States, Russia, France, China and the United Kingdom -- had a responsibility to forge a coordinated strategy for responding to that threat.

''As the NPT nuclear weapon states, we also have a special responsibility to protect the viability of the non-proliferation regime and a responsibility which we must reaffirm in Geneva to reduce further the level of our nuclear arsenals and the likelihood of nuclear war,'' she observed before her departure for Geneva.

She said right now, the most important thing India and Pakistan could do was ''to take a deep breath and to begin to climb out of the hole they have dug themselves into. This then, is the first of the three goals we have set for ourselves in Geneva and the days ahead."

''Our message to India and Pakistan must be that there should be no further nuclear testing, to deployment or testing of missiles, no more inflammatory rhetoric and no more provocative military activity,'' she added.

Albright said, ''Our second, longer-term goal is to avert a regional arms race and to re-examine options for easing the underlying political problems between India and Pakistan, including Kashmir.''

''We will also be urging India and Pakistan to sign the CTBT now and without conditions to stop producing fissile material and to agree on a process for regional arms control,'' she added.

She made it clear that the NPT would not be amended to accommodate either India or Pakistan. ''We will, however, consider measures to help them maintain peace and we will stand ready to help them resolve their differences through dialogue,'' she added.

Her refusal to amend the NPT means the US is against bestowing on either India or Pakistan the status of a nuclear power currently available to only five nations -- the US, Russia, Britain, France and China.

Under the treaty, only those countries had the status which tested their nuclear devices before 1968. They are allowed to retain nuclear weapons and their installations are not subject to international inspection, the facilities denied to all other countries. In protest against this discriminatory provision, India declined to sign the treaty. Pakistan followed India's lead.

UNI

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