DATE=3/8/2000
TYPE=BACKGROUND REPORT
TITLE=CLINTON-PAKISTAN VISIT
NUMBER=5-45599
BYLINE=DAVID GOLLUST
DATELINE=WHITE HOUSE
CONTENT=
VOICED AT:
INTRO: President Clinton - after weeks of debate
among foreign policy aides - has decided to pay a
brief visit to Pakistan at the close of a South Asian
trip later this month [Eds: he expected to leave March
18th] that will also take him to India and Bangladesh.
Administration officials say the visit is aimed at
keeping lines of communication open to Pakistan
despite the overthrow of civilian rule there last
October. V-O-A's David Gollust reports from the White
House.
TEXT: The president's plans to visit India and
Bangladesh were announced several weeks ago. But the
decision to make the brief stop in Islamabad came less
than two weeks before his departure - a reflection of
the hesitancy on the part of the administration to
directly engage the military government of General
Pervez Musharraf, which came to power in last
October's coup.
Senior U-S officials who briefed reporters on the
decision say Mr. Clinton is going to Pakistan not
because he approves of or acquiesces to the military
regime, but to keep an open and direct channel with
that country on critical issues including: nuclear
proliferation, Kashmir and the fight against
terrorism.
The president was to have made his trip to South Asia
in 1998 but plans had to be scrapped after first India
and then Pakistan conducted nuclear tests that year in
a big setback for administration hopes to contain the
spread of nuclear weapons.
Administration officials concede that little has been
done to address U-S non-proliferation concerns by
either country since then, and that General Musharraf
has made scant progress toward restoring civilian rule
or curbing Afghan-based terrorism.
But they say the president decided to go ahead with
the low-profile stop in the belief that engaging
Pakistan is essential to easing South Asian tensions.
which they say are higher than at any time since the
last Indian-Pakistani war in 1971.
U-S, South Asian and arms control analysts are divided
about the wisdom of the Pakistan visit.
John Isaacs, president of the Council for a Livable
World - a liberal arms-control advocacy group - says
he agrees the United States should have dialogue with
all sorts of governments. But he says a presidential
visit to the two South Asian powers - so soon after
their nuclear tests and near-war over Kashmir last
year - is ill-advised:
/// ISAACS ACTUALITY ///
I think it is important to have meetings with
leaders with whom you agree, and those with whom
you don't agree. So I don't have a problem
visiting Pakistan for that reason. I just feel
in some ways that this is rewarding countries
that have gone nuclear at a time when we are
trying to discourage nuclear weapons from
spreading across the globe.
/// END ACT ///
However Geoffrey Kemp, a former Reagan administration
foreign policy adviser, says the United States cannot
ignore the current Pakistani leadership and expect it
to do things that serve U-S interests. Mr. Kemp, now
director of regional security studies at Washington's
Nixon Center [a research institution], also says he
agrees with the Clinton White House that Mr. Clinton
would be turning his back on pro-democracy forces in
Pakistan if he passed up the stop in Islamabad:
/// KEMP ACTUALITY ///
I think not to have gone would have been, first,
a huge snub to the people of Pakistan who have
been loyal friends to the United States for
many, many years. And secondly, it would have
encouraged the anti-American factions in
Pakistan to distance themselves even more from
policies that we regard as centrist and
sensible, and perhaps become more embroiled with
the groups we're most concerned about - namely
terrorists and extremists operating out of
Afghanistan.
/// END ACT ///
Administration officials say they have no "checklist"
of actions expected of General Musharraf as a quid pro
quo for the Clinton visit. But they said they look to
him to be more specific about his intentions with
regard to democratization in a national-day address to
the Pakistani people March 23rd - two days before Mr.
Clinton's arrival.
They also say they anticipate a visit to Afghanistan
by General Musharraf soon, in which he will press the
leaders of the Taleban movement to shut down training
camps of followers of exiled Saudi extremist Osama Bin
Laden, who is blamed for anti-U.S. terrorist acts in
Africa and elsewhere.
The U-S officials further say they look to General
Musharraf to assert control over militant Islamic
organizations, including the Kashmir-based Harakat ul-
Mujahedeen, which the State Department considers a
terrorist organization.
The Clinton stop in Islamabad, which will last just a
few hours, will stand in sharp contrast to his five-
day five-city visit to India, the first there by a U-S
President since 1978. (Signed)
NEB/DAG/JO
08-Mar-2000 14:13 PM EDT (08-Mar-2000 1913 UTC)
NNNN
Source: Voice of America
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