DATE:02/15/96 TITLE:15-02-96 HOLUM, PAKISTANI, INDIAN OFFICIALS DISCUSS SOUTH ASIAN SECURITY TEXT: (Tensions highlighted at Carnegie conference) (820) By Rick Marshall USIA Staff Writer Washington -- The complex security concerns of Pakistan and India were highlighted in recent remarks by John Holum, director of the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, and by senior Indian and Pakistani officials who were in Washington for a non-proliferation conference hosted by the Carnegie Endowment. On February 12 Holum expressed his concern that South Asia was "poised on the brink of an arms and missile race." At a separate press conference on February 15, Holum urged both India and Pakistan to step back from the tensions that have sometimes threatened the region. "I strongly believe that to the extent we can resolve the arms control issue, it's a plus-sum game for both countries," he said. Holum then defined three basic U.S. objectives for easing South Asian tension: no further production of fissile material, no testing of nuclear weapons, and no first deployment of missiles. At the non-proliferation conference February 13, Mohammad Nawaz Sharif, the former prime minister who now leads the opposition in Pakistan's National Assembly, noted that the security situation in South Asia has become "very murky" in recent years. "The largest country in the region is busily engaged in piling up weapons of destruction in the conventional and non-conventional fields and has initiated an arms race in South Asia," Sharif said. "The dilemma that confronts a developing country like Pakistan is to reconcile the imperatives of economic development with the exigency of coping with a dire threat to its security and survival." Sharif was particularly critical of India's Prithvi missile system which, if deployed near Pakistan's border would "certainly complicate the tense situation already existing." "Pakistan is in no position to ignore such a threat," he added. The United States had already made clear its concern about the Prithvi missile. Responding to reports that India was on the verge of deploying it, the State Department issued a statement January 16 saying that "the United States believes that the deployment or acquisition of ballistic missile delivery systems by India or Pakistan would be destabilizing and thereby undermine the security of both countries." Speaking on India's panel at the non-proliferation conference was Krishna Chandra Pant, a former minister of defense. Pant began by noting India's objections to last year's permanent extension of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). The NPT, he said was perpetuating the "nuclear monopoly" of the United States, Russia, Britain, France, and China. India, which along with Pakistan is one of the few nations not to have signed the NPT, exploded a nuclear weapons device in 1974. Recent reports in the U.S. media have suggested that India appeared to be preparing a second explosion at its test site in Pokharan, not far from the Pakistani border. Another panelist, Jaswant Singh, a member of the Indian Parliament whose home district includes Pokharan, made light of these reports, however. Pant made note several times of India's "self-restraint," despite the fact that it was surrounded by nations with considerable nuclear and missile capabilities. "India's self-restraint, however, is coming under pressure," he stated, citing "continued transfers of nuclear and missile technologies in its neighborhood ... and external arms transfers, including the decision of the United States to proved hundreds of millions of dollars worth of high-tech weapons systems to one of the parties." This last was an apparent reference to the Brown Amendment, the recently passed legislation which enables the United States to release $370 million worth of military equipment to Pakistan. The equipment had been in the pipeline when the Pressler Amendment halted the process in 1990. Pant then turned to the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), which is currently being negotiated at the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva. "India will enthusiastically back a CTBT as part of a disarmament plan," Pant said. He stressed, however, that India believes the CTBT and a proposed fissile material cut-off treaty should lead "to the total elimination of nuclear weapons within a time-bound framework." The United States opposes the idea that the CTBT should be linked to an overall timetable for the elimination of nuclear weapons. "To hold up the test ban for the sake of other goals, such as a timebound framework for complete nuclear disarmament, is a strategy for failure," Holum said February 12. Speakers in both panels made note of the important role the United States plays in South Asia. Pant referred to "fundamental strategic interests shared by India and the United States" in economic and military relations. "The 1994 Clinton-Rao declaration on nuclear disarmament warrants the hope that the world's two largest democracies will work together to promote genuine global disarmament," he added. Sharif noted Pakistan's long association with the United States and expressed hope that the United States could help deter India from deploying its missiles along the Pakistani border. NNNN .
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