17 September 1998
REPORT URGES INDIA, PAKISTAN TO CAP NUCLEAR CAPABILITY
(Congress urged to give President sanctions waiver) (650) By Rick Marshall USIA Staff Writer Washington -- A special report on the consequences of India and Pakistan's nuclear tests was issued here September 17 by two leading U.S. think tanks. Entitled "After the Tests: US Policy toward India and Pakistan," the report, sponsored jointly by the Council on Foreign Relations and the Brookings Institution, calls for both India and Pakistan "to adopt policies that will help stabilize the situation in South Asia by capping their nuclear capabilities at their current levels." At the same time, it urged the U.S. Congress "to provide broad waiver authority to the President so that sanctions and incentives can be used to support, rather than thwart, U.S. diplomacy." "Kashmir remains the most dangerous point of contention between India and Pakistan," the report goes on to say. "It is the issue with the greatest potential to trigger a conventional or even nuclear war. That said, the dispute is not ripe for final resolution. It is not even ripe for mediation by the United States or anyone else." The co-chairs of the report were Richard Haass and Morton Halperin. Haass, now with Brookings, was senior director for Near East and South Asian Affairs at the National Security Council during the Bush Administration. Halperin, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, served from 1994 to 1996 as senior director for democracy at the National Security Council. The two men are scheduled to travel to India and Pakistan next week to discuss the report and its recommendations. "The United States has important interests in both India and Pakistan in, addition to discouraging nuclear proliferation," according to the report: "promoting democracy and internal stability; expanding economic growth, trade and investment; and developing political and, where applicable, military cooperation on a host of regional and global challenges." "Closer American ties with India and Pakistan should buttress efforts to discourage further proliferation, while progress in containing a nuclear arms race will facilitate closer bilateral cooperation between both countries and the United States. "US foreign policy should not sacrifice its many interests in South Asia in order to promote unrealistic aims in the nuclear realm. In particular, a complete 'rollback' to a non-nuclear South Asia is simply not a realistic near- or even medium-term policy option for the United States." Turning to the economic sanctions -- the Glenn Amendment that was levied against India and Pakistan as a result of their nuclear tests this May and the Symington and Pressler Amendments which have been in effect against Pakistan for several years -- the report said they were "almost certain to make the challenge of promoting the full range of American interests more difficult ... The unintended consequences of U.S. sanctions are particularly pertinent to Pakistan, which is far more dependent than is India on international assistance. Sanctions could actually weaken political authority in Pakistan, a state already burdened by political, social, and economic problems." In addition to capping their nuclear weapons programs, the report called on both India and Pakistan to: -- sign the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT); -- participate in good faith negotiations and sign any ensuing Fissile Material Cut-Off Treaty (FMCT); -- participate in a broad-based moratorium on producing fissile material; -- refrain from transferring nuclear or missile technology to any third party; -- refrain from deploying missiles with nuclear warheads or aircraft with nuclear bombs; -- implement a series of confidence-building measures, including regular use of hot line and advance notification of military exercises; -- take steps to calm the situation in Kashmir, while avoiding unilateral acts that could exacerbate tensions, and -- enter into sustained, serious negotiations with each other on the entire range of issues that divide them.
|
NEWSLETTER
|
| Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list |
|
|
|
