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Bitter Pak slams India-US nuclear agreement, wants 'package deal'
A day after a key committee in the Congress endorsed a bill to implement the Indo-US civilian nuclear deal, a bitter Pakistan on Wednesday said it would not accept any "discriminatory treatment" and that a "package deal" for the two neighbouring countries would have better served the strategic stability in South Asia. "Pakistan does not accept any discriminatory treatment," a Foreign Ministry statement said, reacting to the House International Relations Committee's approval of a draft bill to make exemptions in US energy laws for implementing the deal."Strategic stability in the region would have been better served if American Administration has offered the agreement to Islamabad too as a package deal to prevent nuclear arms race in the subcontinent," said the statement issued by Foreign Office Spokesperson Tasnim Aslam. "We have cautioned the international community about the consequences of this agreement for the shared objectives of stability in South Asia and a strong global non-proliferation regime," Aslam said of the Indo-US nuclear deal. "...the objective of strategic stability in South Asia and the global non-proliferation regime would have been better served if the US had considered a package approach for Pakistan and India, two non-NPT nuclear weapons states, with a view to preventing a nuclear arms race and promoting restraints while ensuring that the legitimate needs of both countries for civilian nuclear power generation are met." "While we will continue to act with responsibility in maintaining minimum credible deterrent and to avoid an arms race, we will remain fully committed to our security requirements and the needs of our economic development which demand growth in the energy sector including civilian nuclear power generation," the Foreign Office spokesperson said. Pakistan's reaction followed reports that President Pervez Musharraf once again asked visiting US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to extend the nuclear deal to it. For her part, Rice said, "we've been very, very clear. We believe that the situation with India is a special circumstance." "We have not had a chance to discuss that specific issue, but we eventually will. We will. We will discuss it," she said at a Joint press conference with Pakistan Foreign Minister Khurshid M Kasuri. "But we're having very fruitful discussions with Pakistan about how to meet Pakistan's energy needs. This is a question of how to meet one's needs for reliable, safe, clean energy that can support economic growth," she said. "And I mentioned that the Energy Dialogue took place in Washington just yesterday and Secretary Sam Bodman was himself participating in that, and so I think we're going to continue to have discussions about how to meet Pakistan's energy needs," the Secretary of State said. She was referring to talks between US and Pakistan in Washington on non-nuclear energy options to help Islamabad meet its energy requirements. Posted by: john 2006-06-28 |
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