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Pak N-tests close to certain, says Ayub Khan

Pakistan Foreign Minister Gohar Ayub Khan has said his country's nuclear tests in response to Indian's experiments were very close to certain.

In an interview published over the weekend, Khan said the Pakistani response to last week's series of nuclear tests by India was just a matter of timing for his government.

Khan made the remarks on Saturday after a US delegation sent by President Bill Clinton left Islamabad, apparently unsuccessful in its mission to try to persuade the country not to match the Indian explosions.

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharief had said before holding talks with the US delegation that Pakistan was in no haste to respond to the Indian tests.

Sharief had urged, in a letter to leaders of the G-8 countries who met over the weekend in Birmingham, England, to recognise and be receptive to Pakistan's security concerns.

But Islamabad was dismayed that the G-8 confined itself to expressing international concern and opposition without imposing any sanctions against India.

Pakistan foreign secretary Shamshad Ahmad left for China on Sunday for consultations, even as a Japanese special envoy arrived in Islamabad simultaneously to renew Tokyo's advice of restraint and the threat of sanctions if the advice was ignored.

Meanwhile, faced with contradictory domestic and foreign pressures, Sharief appears to be in a fix over the issue of a nuclear test to level up with India's.

In an interview with The Washington Post, he said the decision was also difficult because he realised that pressing ahead with a test could invite international economic sanctions that his country could ill-afford.

The daily noted that even without new economic restrictions that could follow a nuclear test, Pakistan's economy is struggling. Foreign exchange reserves hover around a billion dollars, barely enough to cover three months of the trade deficit. The average annual per capita income for every Pakistani is less than 500 dollars a year, and 65 per cent of the population is illiterate.

''We have made no irrevocable decisions as yet. There is a tremendous responsibility on my shoulders. It is important not to act in a hasty manner,'' he added. ''We do not want to madly follow suit, to madly do what India has done, we do not want to blindly plunge into this arena.''

"Please believe me, we do have the capability and that we have exercised the utmost restraint,'' he added.

Sharief also stressed his reluctance to enter a regional nuclear arms race.

''If these things are understood, people will understand that it is India that is responsible for spoiling the atmosphere in this region,'' the prime minister observed.

''The balance of power in this region has been very badly shaken,'' said Sharief after a visit by senior US officials who tried to dissuade him from following India's lead. And while Sharief said the talks went well, he asked: ''How far can any nation depend on the assurances of others?''

Sharief gave no timetable for a decision by Pakistan, but he must be aware of the rising domestic pressure to respond to India. ''If we wanted a tit-for-tat response, that could have been given straight away,'' he said.

''We are analysing the situation. We will see the effects of these sanctions on India and what does the world do to remove this imbalance of power in this region and how they deal with India,'' he added.

Sharief said over and over, the issue was security. ''Pakistan has legitimate security concerns which need to be recognised and addressed by the international community. If we can do that without testing a device and address our legitimate security concerns and satisfy ourselves that our security is not in jeopardy, that would be the ideal thing,'' he added.

However, he stressed, ''That does not depend on Pakistan alone. It is up to the international community.''

Although satisfied with his meeting with American officials on Friday, he said, ''Europe's reaction seems to be a mild one. In reality, this is no reaction at all. India is making a joke of these reactions.''

Despite these troubles, Pakistan's leader took the high road in talking about the Indian nuclear tests. In a meeting with US Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott, Sharief said he made no effort to trade Pakistani nuclear restraint for economic concessions. Nor did he ask for the release of the 28 F-16 fighter jets that Pakistan paid for and never received or for the lifting of US restrictions under the Pressler Amendment.

''We made no monetary demands. We're not looking for monetary gains,'' he said, adding that Pakistan's security could not be bartered.''

He said, ''I want to race in the field of economics. I want to race in the field of trade and development. But I have been pushed in a race of armaments with India,'' he added.

Sharief called the dispute between India and Pakistan over Kashmir the root of their tensions. He urged the US and other countries to take steps to mediate over Kashmir.

He said the nuclear tests suggested that the Kashmir policies were probably not mere rhetoric and that Pakistan was bracing for a challenge in that region.

UNI

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