[sacw] Nuclear Pakistan - Views & News

[Harsh Kapoor]

South Asian Against Nukes Dispatch
7 January 2000
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#1.CTBT - timing remains of the essence [A comment from Pakistan]
#2. Belgium to supply wares for the Karachi Nuclear Plant
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#1.
=46riday Times
7 January 2000
Opinion

CTBT: timing remains of the essence

Ejaz Haider says a good decision at the wrong time is
always a bad decision in terms of strategy

With the prospect of US President Bill Clinton's visit to India becoming
clearer and the NPT quinquennial review conference coming up in March
this year, New Delhi has stepped up diplomatic efforts to get a quid pro
quo from Washington. It now seems to be toying with the idea of signing
the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) without ratification or at
least making a parliamentary announcement that it is putting a ban on
further nuclear tests.

Ideally, New Delhi would have liked things to rest as they are,
especially after the US Senate's refusal to ratify the treaty.
Realistically, however, it knows that it cannot get any strategic
advantage out of its nuclear capability if it doesn't engage Washington
on this issue. Since lack of engagement would defeat the entire purpose
of the exercise because nuclear capability is not about creating bombs
but acquiring strategic outreach, therefore its capability must
translate into some concrete advantages: technological, military and
diplomatic. Moreover, given the noose created by the nonproliferation
agenda, the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty being its centrepiece, India
remains locked out of the system. It needs a viable quid pro quo, even
if on the sidelines, to extract some advantage out of its nuclear
explosions.

Indian strategists have been presenting various options in this regard
since May 1998. Two of those options stand out: a permanent seat on the
UN Security Council and transfer of dual technology, which largely
remains denied to it since 1974 because of the technology control
regime. It now appears that at least the latter option might work out in
favour of India. An Indian delegation was in Washington last December
ahead of this month's talks in London between Indian Foreign Minister
Jaswant Singh and US Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott. The
delegation was reported to have discussed some technical issues with US
experts and New Delhi hopes the list of companies blacklisted by
Washington following the nuclear tests could be further pared down.

Some indication that Washington might in fact be now prepared to give
some "legitimacy" to India's nuclear capability was also given by a
senior State Department official. This official was quoted as saying
that India could possess a credible minimum deterrent whose size and
composition would be determined by New Delhi itself. However, as Indian
strategists have pointed out, New Delhi does not face the problem of
legitimacy so much from the nuclear-weapons states as it does from the
non-nuclear weapons states who have lapped up the nonproliferation
agenda despite its being discriminatory. The Indians face a dilemma on
this front. Until the 1995 quinquennial NPT review conference, India had
always taken on the mantle of a leader of the have-not crowd by protesti
ng against the discrimination of closing down the system and denying
nuclear capability to the rest of the world. Its argumentation was
pegged to universalism: the NPT was said to be discriminatory, dealing
as it did merely with horizontal proliferation; the Club of Five had
failed to abide by article VI of the NPT, allowing the ideal of
universal disarmament to degenerate into nonproliferation; India would
sign the NPT only if the NWSs concede disarmament.

The 1995 review conference surprised India. The have-nots were satisfied
with the way the system worked and while they were prepared to pressure
the NWSs to work towards disarmament, they were not prepared to allow an
"all or nothing" argument to result in nuclear proliferation. Not only
this, the NNWSs also scored a plus on NWSs when they forced them to
acquiesce to discussions on the complete test ban treaty. That set the
wheel moving for India, resulting in nuclear tests in May 1998.

Now the quinquennial conference is coming up again. India has already
lost its moral high ground. It now fears that while the conference will
achieve nothing on the NPT front, it will, nevertheless, get down to
some substantive discussions on the CTBT and the FMCT. That is the
ground New Delhi fears most. It therefore plans to formulate a strategy
to tide over the period until March 2000. Debate has already begun in
India on whether the country should sign the CTBT. Some strategists have
recommended that New Delhi get its Parliament to declare that the
country will not conduct any nuclear tests unless the test ban is
flouted by another party. These strategists hope India could "disarm"
the US NPT lobby and the have-nots, which it now refers to as "nuclear
fundamentalist nations".

Clearly, the likely pronouncement of a test ban by India will be a
strategic move, not a moral norm. It is being advocated to circumvent
opposition by countries like Japan, Canada, Australia, Egypt and South
Africa, which are strongly opposed to accommodating India. The move, if
it does come, must therefore be looked at in its proper perspective. If
India is indeed to keep a CMD, which also needs constant upgradation, it
is na=EFve to think it could rest assured with the five tests it conducted
in May 1998. It will also be disastrous on the part of the US, and for
South Asia, to grant India a quid pro quo in its rush to get to the
Indian market or effect some kind of strategic partnership with India.
Moreover, while India might be thinking in terms of signing the CTBT, it
is not likely to ratify the treaty at this stage.

It is quite obvious that rejection by the US Senate to ratify the treaty
has forced the Clinton Administration on the back foot. It cannot engage
New Delhi with the same force that it could last year. India is likely
to take advantage of that. However, Washington could use the NNWSs and
its own NPT lobbies at the 2000 conference to deal with India instead of
allowing New Delhi to extract a reciprocal deal from it. In a recent
article in Times of India, K Subrahmanyam wrote under the caption, "CTBT
Consensus": "It is obvious that both countries need more time to convert
their rejectionists in favour of support to the CTBT. If the US feels
that getting India's signature on the CTBT without ratification will
help it in its own campaign then let it come out with it and make the
price of India's signature without ratification attractive enough. There
are ways of communicating this without formal declarations. A seat in
the Security Council is not an attractive enough price since it would
only buy India more diplomatic trouble. The US should think again and
think hard."

The smugness of this passage is self-evident. Given the troubles at home
for the Clinton Administration and the high prospects of a Republican
victory in the next presidential elections, Indian strategists want
India to drive a very hard bargain with Washington. Even the emphasis of
signing without ratification clear in the event of a signature, despite
the fact that the signature itself has to have a super price tag.

What must Pakistan do under these circumstances? It has lost precious
time on making up its mind on the CTBT. Now, the issue is not simply
signing the CTBT but whether it can get something like a quid pro quo
out of its signature. A related issue is: Should it sign if it cannot
extract a price equal to India's? Certain things are evident. Pakistan
may or may not sign the treaty if India gets a better deal, but not
signing will also isolate it completely and only increase international
pressure on it. Can it withstand such pressure given its internal
instability and economic travails? If it cannot do so, can it live with
a lesser deal than the one available to India?

The right-wing parties have already begun saying that they are against
signing the treaty. That seems to have become their staple since last
year's tests. However, now they can justify their opposition on the
basis that Pakistan may not get a better deal than India. But the issue
of course pertains to whether after getting isolated Pakistan's
bargaining power will increase. Quite clearly, it will not. Timing is of
the essence in diplomacy. If Islamabad decides against signing now
because it is not likely to get a better price, there is always the
possibility of the price going further down until it is forced to settle
for nothing but a mere bail-out.

=46oreign Minister Abdus Sattar's briefing to the National Security
Council December 23 indicates the government might be thinking of
signing the treaty. That will be a sensible course of action. The
government should go right ahead and engage the Administration to see
what kind of a deal it can get. It is na=EFve to think that waiting for
India would enhance Pakistan's bargaining position. If anything,
Pakistan's bargaining position has declined since it tested. It can
engage Washington on (a) a withdrawal from the treaty if India breaks
the CTBT norm; (b) a complete lifting of sanctions and resumption of
conventional military aid; and (c) a debt write-off. One hopes the
policymakers will take the right decision at the right time because if
that does not happen, we might end up making a good decision at the
wrong time. And a good decision at the wrong time is always a bad
decision in terms of strategy.

=46or its part, the US must not consider that India's strategic
compulsions are holier than Pakistan's. Irrespective of the size, market
and resources of a country, national security has a universal dimension.
Pakistan has a genuine dispute with India and neither Pakistan nor that
dispute can be wished away merely because of India's size. Moreover, the
nonproliferation norm was broken by India, not Pakistan, which merely
responded to its bigger neighbour because of security compulsions.
Giving India a better deal to get it to adhere to nonproliferation will
only send out the wrong signal.
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#2.
DAWN
6 January 2000

Belgium told to sell Nuclear spares to KANUPP
By Shadaba Islam

BRUSSELS, Jan 5: The International Atomic Energy Agency has called on
the Belgian government to press ahead with plans to deliver $2 million
worth of electronic components to the Karachi Nuclear Power Plant
(KANUPP), saying the machinery is urgently required to ensure the
security of the installation.
Press reports published on Wednesday in Belgium said that Mohamed
ElBaradei, head of the Vienna-based IAEA, has warned Belgian Prime
Minister Guy Verhofstadt in a letter that Kanupp can only become
operational under required security and safety conditions if it has
access to the Belgian equipment.
Last summer Belgium suspended the delivery of the equipment because of
concerns about Pakistan's nuclear plans.
The Prime Minister's press service said that Verhofstadt had not
received the IAEA letter dated November 18.
"For reasons still to be established, the IAEA director general's letter
has not reached the Prime Minister," a government communique said.
The contents of the IAEA letter were, however, revealed in Wednesday's
edition of the Libre Belgique newspaper.
According to the Libre Belgique, the IAEA has cautioned the Belgian
government not to insist that Kanupp should resume operations before
getting delivery of the Belgian equipment, saying this could pose
"serious security problems."
The paper added that the IAEA had assured Brussels that the electronic
machinery in question could not be misused for military purposes. The
agency added that while Pakistan had not signed a complete security
supervision treaty called a "full-scope safeguard" accord with the IAEA,
international security norms were in application in Kanupp since 1969
under a specific accord concluded with the Vienna-based organisation.
Controversy triggered by release of the IAEA letter on Kanupp could
present Prime Minister Verhofstadt with his first political headache of
the new year, according to Belgian commentators.
The Belgian government decided after much debate last September to
authorise electronics firm Alstom Supply and Services to deliver a
so-called "nuclear instrumentation system" to Pakistan provided
Islamabad could meet two conditions.
=46irst, Belgium said that Kanupp, shut since a few years, would have to
resume operations before it could receive the equipment. Second,
Brussels insisted that delivery would depend on Pakistan's acceptance of
IAEA monitoring of all its nuclear installations. Because neither of the
two conditions has been met so far, delivery of the Belgian equipment
remains suspended.
A communique from Prime Minister Verhofstadt's office said the position
of the federal government was established on September 10 last year and
remained unchanged.
Alstom Systems & Services, the Belgian company which won the contract in
June 1997, argues that its "nuclear instrument system" designed to check
the nuclear activity of reactors will improve security conditions at
Kanupp.
The Alstom contract was approved by the previous Belgian government
headed by Jean Luc Dehaene but suspended in early August by Olivier
Deleuze, a member of the Green party and state secretary for energy in
the new administration of Verhofstadt.
Critics of the sale, both inside and outside the government, have also
voiced concern that Pakistan, following its nuclear tests last May,
could use the Belgian-supplied equipment to increase its "military"
nuclear capacity.
Belgium, like other members of the nuclear suppliers club, does not sell
nuclear material or equipment to countries which have not signed a
full-scope nuclear safety agreement with the Vienna-based International
Energy Agency.
But a special security clause agreed by the nuclear powers allows
countries to sell material which is specifically designed to increase
the security of existing reactors.