Pak has its own options post-Indo-US N-deal: Musharraf

[jpak]

http://sify.com/news/fullstory.php?id=14153919

Gearing up to ask President George Bushto extend the India-US civilian nuclear technology deal to Pakistan as well, President Pervez Musharraf on Thursday said Washington concluded such a deal with New Delhi in its own interest and Islamabad has its own options even if Pakistan failed to get such an agreement for itself.

"Every country has certain national interests, the US has its own interests in the region vis-a-vis India, vis-a-vis China, vis-a-vis everyone. They devise their strategy according to their own interest", Musharraf said while addressing a national security workshop at the National Defence College in Islamabad on Thursday.

<snip>

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has already discounted the possibility of US extending the nuclear deal to Pakistan on the grounds of concerns over nuclear proliferation.

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[popeye76]

1. Abandon nuclear weapons, China tells India

Abandon nuclear weapons, China tells India
Beijing, March 2, 2006 Reuters

China urged India to abandon nuclear weapons and strengthen atomic safeguards as President George W Bush and the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh sealed a controversial nuclear pact on Thursday. Under the deal signed while Bush visited Delhi, the United States offered India nuclear fuel and technology in return for India agreeing to put a wall between its civilian and military nuclear facilities and place its civilian programme under international inspections.

Some US lawmakers and nuclear experts have criticised the deal, saying it weakens international safeguards, especially the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which India has refused to join.

China added its voice to these misgivings on Thursday.

India should sign the NPT and also dismantle its nuclear weapons, a spokesman for China's Foreign Ministry, Qin Gang, told a news briefing in Beijing.

"As a signatory country, China hopes non-signatory countries will join it as soon as possible as non-nuclear weapon states, thereby contributing to strengthening the international non-proliferation regime," he said.

Qin said current international safeguards on nuclear weapons were the hard-won product of many countries' efforts and should not be weakened by exceptions.

"China hopes that concerned countries developing cooperation in peaceful nuclear uses will pay attention to these efforts. The cooperation should conform with the rules of international non-proliferation mechanisms," he said.

The NPT grants China, the United States, Russia, France and Britain status as nuclear weapons states, but bars other signatory countries from having such weapons.

China has been pursuing nuclear power cooperation with Pakistan, India's long-time rival, and has also hosted stalled six-party talks on North Korea's nuclear weapons programme.

Pyongyang withdrew from the NPT in 2003, after the United States accused it of enriching uranium for weapons.

China urged Iran on Thursday to cooperate with the UN nuclear watchdog and suspend nuclear enrichment activities, adding to rising international pressure on Tehran.

"China hopes Iran will fully cooperate with the agency and clarify the unresolved questions about its nuclear programme and will restore the international community's confidence in Iran," ministry spokesman Qin said.

[jpak]

2. ChimpCo whacks a hornets nest with this one...

n/t

[varun]

5. China is full of shit......

so what if China signed the NPT?

China is responsible for the spread of nuclear weapons technology to Pakistan, Iran, Libya, N. Korea and now even Myanmar.

China should dismantle its own nukes before lecturing others.

[popeye76]

7. You are full of shit

You sound like a Freeper. No, China AND the US supported Pakistan's nuclear weapons program, as a counter to India during the Cold War (India was USSR ally then). It was Pakistan who then subsequently sold nuclear knowhow to Iran, Libya and North Korea.

Know your own history before shouting talking points from FR.

[Bhaisahab]

8. welcome to DU and well-said

I think Varun's blindsided by a wee-bit of patriotism which is causing the outburst at china. i don't think the dude is a freep.

[varun]

9. NPT is a racist policy

Why should only 5 nations in the world be allowed possession of nuclear weapons?

[varun]

10. China's proliferation record

http://www.nci.org/i/ib12997.htm

...Sometime around 1991, China provides ballistic missile technology to Syria, including the nuclear-capable M-9 missile.In 1993, a Chinese corporation exports ammonium perchlorate, a missile fuel precursor, to the Iraqi government via a Jordanian purchasing agent.9 In August 1993, the United States imposes sanctions on China for exporting nuclear-capable M-11 ballistic missiles to Pakistan...

...In 1995, China exports 5,000 ring magnets to Pakistan. Such magnets are integral components of high-speed gas centrifuges of the type used by Pakistan to enrich uranium to weapons-grade.14..

...In July 1997, a CIA report concludes that, in the second half of 1996, "China was the single most important supplier of equipment and technology for weapons of mass destruction" worldwide.15 The report also states that, for the period July to December 1996---i.e. after China's May 11, 1996 pledge to the United States not to provide assistance to unsafeguarded nuclear facilities---China was Pakistan's "primary source of nuclear-related equipment and technology..."16...

[AlamoDemoc]

3. Musharraf is using diplomatic tone and sending a signal to washington

"Every country has certain national interests, the US has its own interests in the region vis-a-vis India, vis-a-vis China, vis-a-vis everyone. They devise their strategy according to their own interest", Musharraf said while addressing a national security workshop at the National Defence College in Islamabad on Thursday."

What he's saying is that if the United States continues to use India as strategic partner in the region, Pakistan could turn its attention to China as regional partner...hence there could be further nuclear arms race between India and Pakistan.

[jpak]

4. Yup

n/t

[varun]

6. China is already selling civilian nuclear plants to Pakistan

nothing new about that....

[popeye76]

11. US Congressman vows to scuttle nuclear deal

US Congressman vows to scuttle nuclear deal

Aziz Haniffa in Washington, DC | March 03, 2006 09:53 IST
Last Updated: March 03, 2006 10:33 IST


One of the fiercest critics against nuclear proliferation in the United States Congress has reacted angrily to the civilian nuclear cooperation agreement between India and the United States and vows to scuttle the deal which he asserts has blown a hole in the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.

In an immediate reaction to the deal announced by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and President George W Bush following their summit in New Delhi on March 2, US Congressman Edward Markey says in a last minute rush to get a nuclear deal with India at any cost, President Bush appears to have caved to Indian demands.

The Democratic Congressman from Massachusetts is the co-chair of the Bipartisan Task Force on Nonproliferation and the seniormost Democrat on the House Energy and Commerce Committee in the US Congress.

"The United States has now pushed over a nuclear domino that falls against 187 other nations -- all signers of the Nonproliferation Treaty -- to review why they should honour a document which the nuclear superpowers no longer respect," he complains, adding, "It empowers the hawks in every rogue nation to put their nuclear weapons plans on steroids now that they can no longer be isolated as non-signers of an agreement that has been shredded."

Markey claims there is bipartisan opposition to the deal in the US Congress, as it is another case of the Bush administration announcing a commercial deal without due regard for its impact on national security interests.

While acknowledging that the full details are not yet available, Markey -- considered the fiercest nonproliferation advocate in the US House of Representatives -- argues it appears that the Bush administration is "going to open up nuclear trade with a country which has refused to sign the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, which refuses to accept full scope international safeguards over its nuclear facilities, and which refuses to halt fissile materials for nuclear bombs."

Markey asserts that the Bush administration has failed to come up with a safeguards plan that has any credibility and lamented that the administration's negotiators failed to insist that all of India's old spent fuel be safeguarded against diversion to weapons; ailed to get India to agree to halt production of new fissile material for bombs; failed to get India to put its fast breeder reactors under safeguards.

He feels the safeguards are so weak that India will be able to divert enough material from its civilian programme to build more than 1,000 nuclear weapons in addition to the 50 to 100 bombs it has already built, "all with the approval of the United States of America."

"If we allow India this loophole," Markey argues, "Pakistan, like India, a country that has not signed the Nonproliferation Treaty, has already indicated its interest in making a similar deal if not with the US, then with China. Iran, a country that has signed the NPT, will note that US insistence on compliance with full scope safeguards appears to be limited to countries that it does not like."

He warns if other members of the Nuclear Suppliers Group "follow the example set in this deal, the entire nuclear nonproliferation regime will begin to collapse, and we may ultimately return to the kind of world that President John F Kennedy once feared, 'a world in which we don't ask who has the bomb, but who does not'."

"I intend to fight this terrible agreement and block any legislation would alter restrictions on nuclear trade in law," he says. "At the same time, I believe 45 nations who members Nuclear Suppliers Group need send a strong signal President Bush and US Congress if they do wish to see NSG guidelines destroyed."

Last July, the ink was hardly dry on the US-India Joint Statement of July 18, with the civilian nuclear cooperation component between Washington and New Delhi as its centerpiece when Markey on that very day introduced an amendment in the US Congress strongly opposing the deal.

On the eve of the President's departure to India, Markey assembled a coalition to scuttle the deal comprising several arms control organizations led by the Arms Control Association, The Union of Concerned Scientists and environmental groups including The Friends of the Earth and the Sierra Club.

In announcing the mobilisation of this coalition, Markey declared, 'We believe that it is an agreement that is not in the best interests of the security of the United States and the rest of the world.'

In an interview with rediff.com, Markey denies he is anti-India, declaring, "I am a friend of India and many of the people who consider themselves big friends of India think there are better ways for the United States to help India in the electricity generating sector that would help both climate change and the pollution respiratory element related issues in India combined with the retention of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, without this exception."

On the separation plan that was agreed to by Bush and Dr Singh in New Delhi, Markey says, "The premise to me is an oxymoron. There cannot be a credible separation plan without full scope safeguards and the entire purpose of the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) safeguards is to prevent the diversion of nuclear materials from a civilian reactor to military use."

"But in India we would be imposing safeguards on civilian plants when there would be a military nuclear infrastructure operating in parallel and that renders safeguards as illusory," he says. "They may give some modicum of comfort that the reactors and our nuclear fuel aren't directly supporting the Indian nuclear weapons arsensal, but would be indirectly assisting the Indian military programme freeing up India's stockpile of fissile material for military rather than civilian use."

Markey believes that as the US Congress and as the nation "understand more fully what the ramifications are of horizontal nuclear proliferation, the more this issue is going to be very difficult for the administration to move forward."

In New Delhi, an Indian official associated with the negotiations with the United States, asked a rediff.com correspondent, "How many Congressmen has Markey supporting him? Six at best."