Pakistan A Bad Case of Nuclear Friction

By Michael S. Serrill

For more than a decade Pakistan's determination to have the capacity to build nuclear bombs has strained relations with the U.S. That issue returned to the surface last week, threatening to undermine vital areas of cooperation between Washington and its most important strategic ally in South Asia. U.S. Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Michael Armacost arrived in Islamabad with a tough message: Pakistan must submit to on-site inspection of its burgeoning nuclear facilities or risk the suspension of a $540 million military- and economic-aid package. The government of President Mohammed Zia ul-Haq firmly rejected the demand.

In public, at least, Armacost downplayed the dispute. He described the nuclear discussions as "very frank and, I believe, useful." Further talks, he said, would follow. But Pakistani Foreign Minister Sahabzada Yaqub Khan was more direct. He indignantly declared that acceding to any U.S. inspection demand would be "an affront to our self-respect and harmful to our national interests."

Armacost's trip was originally intended as a friendly call to discuss both U.S. aid, which is slated to total $4.2 billion over a six-year period, and the war in neighboring Soviet-occupied Afghanistan. Refugee camps in Pakistan serve as bases of operations for 100,000 U.S.-supported mujahedin guerrilla fighters who are battling the Soviets. Pakistan is the main pipeline for the rebels' arms, including sophisticated Stinger and Blowpipe antiaircraft missiles.

The Zia government has paid a heavy price for its role in supporting Afghanistan's anti-Communist guerrillas. In recent months, Pakistani cities have been rocked by terrorist bomb attacks that authorities blame on Khad, the Afghan secret police. The worst occurrence left 75 dead and 300 injured in Karachi, Pakistan's largest city, and led to demonstrations for greater security.

In addition, Soviet and Afghan pilots have launched well over 100 bomb and rocket attacks on Pakistani soil since late last year, killing more than 300 people. Zia's government has issued an "extremely urgent" request for U.S. radar surveillance aircraft to help ward off the intruders. The Reagan Administration looks favorably on the idea, though it still disagrees with Pakistan on the type of equipment to send.

That high-stakes cooperation is being seriously compromised by the nuclear $ issue. Last month, long after the schedule for Armacost's visit was completed, Arshad Pervez, a Pakistani native who holds Canadian citizenship, was arrested in Philadelphia and charged with trying to export to Pakistan 25 tons of a special steel alloy used in the enrichment of uranium for nuclear weapons. A federal grand jury has since indicted both Pervez and a resident of the Pakistani city of Lahore, retired Brigadier Inam ul-Haq, for conspiring to illegally export strategic materials. U.S. investigators suspect that the Pakistani government is behind the illicit scheme, a charge that Foreign Minister Yaqub Khan denied last week. To buttress that claim, Pakistani authorities have issued a warrant for Inam's arrest.

That may not assuage U.S. legislators who are certain that Pakistan seeks the Bomb to match India, which exploded a "peaceful nuclear device" in 1974. Looming in the background is a 1985 law requiring a cutoff of U.S. aid to any country that tries to illegally acquire American technology or supplies for nuclear bomb making. With his plea to Zia, Armacost was hoping to prevent that cutoff from being applied automatically. The inspection request was specifically aimed at Pakistan's top-secret facility at Kahuta, where most nuclear research is believed to take place.

Pakistan's rejection virtually guarantees that the nuclear issue will continue to fester, thereby threatening the entire range of U.S. interests in the region. One effect of Washington's pressure so far has been to unite a normally vociferous opposition behind Zia's authoritarian government. Declared Maulana Shah Ahmad Noorani, president of the right-wing Jamiatul-Ulema-e- Pakistan Party: "Pakistan must not accept the U.S. pressure. It should continue its nuclear program even if that means cutting off all American aid."

The next move may lie with the U.S. Congress. Last week, in an article in the Washington Post, Claiborne Pell, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, denounced Pakistan for "breaking its commitments and flouting U.S. laws." Representative Dante Fascell of Florida, who heads the House Foreign Affairs Committee, has asked the Administration to suspend military portions of the aid package until Pakistan shows that it is not involved in illicit attempts to obtain nuclear materials. And an appropriations subcommittee has already voted to suspend a small portion of the aid. Many analysts believe congressional action will end there, since awareness among the lawmakers of the larger geopolitical issues is likely to temper a more draconian response to Pakistan's less than cooperative rejoinder. But at the same time, the hope among U.S. officials is that Pakistan will come to grips with the necessity to calm legitimate fears in Washington that Pakistan's nuclear program might touch off a dangerous regional arms race.

With reporting by Mohammed Aftab/Islamabad