DISARMAMENT: Defiant Pakistan Explodes Another Nuclear Device

By Thalif Deen Reprint | | Print |

Thalif Deen

UNITED NATIONS, May 30 1998 (IPS) - Pakistan stepped up the pace of the arms race in South Asia by exploding another nuclear device Saturday in defiance of appeals from the U.N. Security Council, the United Statess and other nations.

The latest blast followed five nuclear tests that Pakistan conducted Thursday and moved Islamabad ahead of India in the “tit- for-tat” test series that began when India detonated five nuclear devices on May 11 and May 13.

In Pakistan, both the state-run radio and TV services had announced two devices were exploded Saturday but Foreign Secretary Shamshad Ahmed told a news conference later that there had been only one explosion. he said there had been no radioactivity released, and that all six tests conducted by pakistan were successful.

Saturday’s blast came less than 24 hours after a visiting Pakistani delegation asserted here that Islamabad had the right to continue with its tests despite warnings from the United States and the United Nations.

“If it is in our national interest to conduct more tests, we will conduct more tests,” Akram Zaki, chairman of Pakistan’s Senate Foreign Relations Committee told reporters Friday.

The White House said Saturday it was saddened but not surprised by Pakistan’s decision to conduct more tests. It condemned Pakistan and labelled the test a serious blow to efforts to diffuse tension in South Asia.

The British government announced that the leaders of Russia and the Group of Seven (G-7) industrial nations – the U.S., Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Canada and Japan – will meet in London June 12 to decide what steps it should take to resolve the nuclear crisis in South Asia. Britain, the current G-7 chairman, said that Pakistan’s second nuclear test was conducted ‘in flagrant disregard to international opinion.”

Zaki, who is leading a high-level official delegation to the U.S., laid out a strong case justifying Pakistan’s decision for a matching response to India’s underground nuclear tests in early May. India and Pakistan have now conducted two tests each within a period of about 19 days.

Zaki said that Pakistan’s nuclear tests should be viewed purely as “a defensive measure” against the growing threat from neigboring India with whom it has fought three wars, two of them over the disputed, predominantly Muslim territory of Kashmir.

“We resisted the temptation (to conduct tests) for more than 14 years,” he said adding that Pakistan’s test was merely a response to India’s.

“A single country having nuclear weapons and dictating terms to others is not acceptable to a sovereign nation like Pakistan,” he said, and added, “We can now sit down and talk to each other on equal terms.”

Regarding the U.S. visit by a Pakistani delegation, he said: “We are here to tell our friends we did it in self-defence.” Zaki said Pakistan’s nuclear programme was “not for fighting wars to prevent wars.”

Zaki also pointed out that he was in the United States when the Russians launched their artificial earth satelitte, the Sputnik, in October 1957.

The Americans, he said, were determined to catch up with the Russians. He felt the mood of despondency in the country at that time. The U.S. accelerated its efforts spending billions of dollars in state-of-the-art space technology in an attempt to outshine the Russians.

“They were able to redress the balance only after Americans landed on the moon”, he said. The first lunar landing took place in July 1969 after a determined effort to beat the Russians by then U.S. President John F. Kennedy.

“We Pakistanis are no different,” Zaki added.

Responding to questions Friday, Zaki contemptuously dismissed recent U.S. intelligence reports that Pakistan was on the verge of conducting more tests. “We are told that U.S. satellites that go around the world monitoring the earth’s activities can even recognise a golf ball,” he said.

But despite all the sophisticated equipment at its command, he added, the U.S. was taken by surprise when India conducted its underground tests. “I am not sure how accurate American intelligence is,” Zaki said.

The United States conceded that while India had “lied” about its nuclear intentions, the Pakistanis were more forthcoming and gave heads-up of its plans to conduct nuclear tests.

Pakistan went ahead with its second test strong messages sent to both countries. In its appeal, the U.S. State Department “stressed the importance of refraining from any further provocative or escalatory steps involving nuclear weapons and missile systems, or any other actions that would increase regional tensions.” On Friday, a U.S. official was quoted as saying: “We have received no concrete assurances from either side.”

Zaki also pointed out that Pakistan has already offered to sign a non-aggression pact with India. “We have also been working towards a nuclear-weapons-free zone (NWFZ) in South Asia,” he said.

But the nuclear test series by India and Pakistan have virtually killed the longstanding U.N. proposal for a NWFZ in South Asia. Immediately after India’s nuclear tests, U.N. Under- Secretary-General for Disarmament Affairs Jayantha Dhanapala admitted that it was very unlikely that the proposed South Asian NWFZ will get off the ground.

Currently, Europe, Middle East and South Asia are the only three geographical regions without NWFZs, although there are several proposals before the 185-member General Assembly for the creation of such zones in these regions.

Dhanapala said the concept of a NWFZ is essentially a pro- active assertion of a sovereign right of a group of non-nuclear- weapon states rejecting nuclear weapons in their region.

“The increasing number of such zones shrinks the area where nuclear weapons can be stationed”, he added. He pointed out that where nuclear weapons states have signed protocols respecting these regions, they confer assurances on neighbouring states that they will not be attacked or threatened with nuclear weapons.

Currently, there are 114 states signatories of treaties establishing NWFzs. With the addition of Antarctica, demilitarised under the Antarctic Treaty, they cover more than 50 percent of the earth’s land mass.