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Pakistan tests five nuclear devices

At 1523 hours Pakistan time (1553 hours IST), Pakistan test-fired five nuclear devices at its testing site in the Chagai Hills, in eastern Baluchistan.

"Today, we have settled our scores with India," said Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharief, announcing the tests, and further proclaiming that the country was ready to place a nuclear warhead on Ghauri, the recently tested long range missile.

In a swift reaction, United States President Bill Clinton announced the imposition of sanctions on Pakistan, under the provisions of the 1994 statute known popularly as the Glenn Amendment, after America's first astronaut and now Democratic senator from Ohio John Glenn.

In a late-breaking development, Tokyo has just indicated that it will be imposing sanctions on Pakistan very soon.

Clinton's reaction was however pre-empted by Sharief who, in a hard-driving broadcast to the nation at 1800 hours PST, declared that his country was prepared to face possible sanctions. Announcing that the government would take the lead in putting in place a culture of austerity, he announced that he would immediately vacate the PM's secretariat.

Warning Pakistanis to be ready to give up holidays and work harder in a bid to overcome the effect of the sanctions, Sharief said that loan defaulters, tax evaders and such would be handled with extreme stringency.

Sharief blamed India for pushing his country into a nuclear arms race, accused the major powers of discriminatory actions against Pakistan, and alleged that the Indian government had mounted nuclear warheads on their missiles.

Interestingly, within minutes of the story breaking, President K R Narayanan debunked the theory that the Pakistan tests were in retaliation for India's own.

The news of the tests was greeted in contrasting styles on both sides of the border. While in Islamabad, gleeful Pakistanis celebrated by shooting off guns into the air, in India Opposition members of Parliament, who were participating in the ongoing debate about India's own nuclear tests, said that this latest event merely underlined their argument that the Vajpayee government had sparked off an arms race in the sub-continent.

Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee in his first official reaction said that the news of the Pakistan test vindicated his government's decision to go in for nuclear tests. It is now obvious, he argued, that Pakistan had a secret nuclear weapons programme, and it justifies India's own need for a nuclear deterrent of its own.

In an extensive speech -- one that came as a marked contrast to Vajpayee's own four line announcement of India's nuclear tests on May 11 -- Sharief thanked China publicly for its support.

In a bid to deflect criticism from Japan which has, ever since India's tests, held out both carrots and sticks aplenty in a bid to prevent Pakistan from carrying out its own tests, Sharief said that though he understood Japanese concerns, he wished to point out that if Japan had nuclear weapons of its own, then Hiroshima and Nagasaki may not have happened.

"We today took a historical step for our security," Sharief said, adding that it was intended to stop India from nuclear domination in the region.

Shifting the onus onto the West, Sharief dubbed India as an expansionist power, and said that if India had been adequately punished for its recent tests, "then we would not have had to conduct our own tests."

US President Clinton, who had as late as midnight on Wednesday night had a 25-minute telephone conversation with Sharief in a bid to persuade him not to conduct the tests, reacted to the news with an expression of his "disappointment".

"I deplore the decision," Clinton said, while calling on both India and Pakistan to reverse the "dangerous arms race".

"Two wrongs do not make a right," Clinton said about the Pakistani stance that its tests were in retaliation to India's own. He further demanded that both nations renounce further testing, sign the CTBT and take decisive steps to reduce tensions in South Asia.

"I cannot believe," Clinton said, "that we are about to start the 21st century by having the Indian sub-continent repeat the worst mistakes of the 20th century, when we know it is not necessary to security, to prosperity, to national greatness and personal fulfilment."

In a swift move, Republican Senator Sam Brownback of Kansas, who is readying legislation aimed at lifting existing sanctions on military aid to Pakistan, said he was withdrawing the planned legislation. The implication -- the sanctions, first imposed in 1990, will remain in force and the US will reconsider its recent decision to provide Pakistan with the 28 nuclear-capable F16s, delivery of which was held up under provisions of the Pressler Amendment.

Meanwhile in his address to the nation, Sharief said, "Our armed forces are ready to face the enemy, our nuclear scientists are also ready to face any eventuality."

Sharief said that a few days from now, he would address the nation yet again, to reveal details of a comprehensive package of measures the government will put in place to combat the threat of international sanctions.

Listen to Nawaz Sharief's speech, in Real Audio

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