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US still persuading Pak not to go nuclear

The US State Department said it is in regular consultations with the government of Pakistan, trying to persuade the Pakistani government to refrain from matching last week's Indian nuclear tests.

State Department spokesman James Rubin was yesterday critical of India for making provocative statements since the underground nuclear blasts.

He was specifically critical of a statement by the Indian home minister who suggested that Pakistan should not try to push its position on Kashmir, given India's newly demonstrated military strength. Rubin called the Indian statement foolish and dangerous and asked the Indian government to exercise control over such official statements.

Last week Rubin accused the Indian government of duplicity in concealing the preparations for the underground nuclear tests. The Indian government issued a statement on Monday denying that it had misled the American government.

Rubin said the US government understood the political pressure it was under to go ahead with its own testing, but he said it was the American view that matching the Indian tests would make Pakistan less safe, rather than safer.

In addition, he said the US government was looking at various financial incentives that might go Pakistan's way if they refrained from testing.

The US government assumes that Pakistan has a number of unassembled nuclear weapons that could be put together in a matter of days or hours.

"Creating a new 'balance of terror' wouldn't improve the situation for Pakistan," Rubin said.

But he said forgoing a test would dramatically improve the climate for Pakistan in the US Congress and that would presumably lead to some financial or military benefits for Pakistan.

The US government has been forbidden to sell Pakistan any military weapons because of the Pressler Amendment which specifies that Pakistan could not receive US military items unless President Bill Clinton could certify that Pakistan did not have a nuclear weapons programme.

No American president has been able to sign such a certificate.

UNI

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