26 February 2004	Thursday	05 Muharram 1425

KARACHI, Feb 25: Egyptian scholar Dr El-Sayed Selim on Wednesday criticized the West's selective application on non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and emphasized that strategic equilibrium was necessary for confidence-building measures leading to resolution of conflicts.

Dr Selim was speaking at the Area Study Centre for Europe on Confidence-building measures as a conflict resolution strategy in the Middle East, the potential and the limitation: Possible European Role in promoting CBMs.

The even was organized in collaboration with the Hanns Seidel Foundation of Germany. The scholar maintained that the European Union could play an important role in creating a viable Palestinian entity and compelling both India and Pakistan to resolve their outstanding issues.

He said that if Israel also recognized the Palestinian State, like the West Germany did under Willy Brandt vis-a-vis the former East Germany, it would give a tremendous boost to the CBMs.

In the context of South Asia, Dr Selim referred to various CBMs since 1971 which, he said, had helped in preventing a fourth war between Pakistan and India but had not helped in resolving the disputes and arms reduction.

He said that the EU, being a major economic partner of India and Pakistan, had a significant leverage in pressuring both the countries to put their nuclear arsenal under international control.

But asking just one country to do that would not help, he added. He also expressed surprise over inclusion of Pakistan in the Greater Middle East paradigm in the context of proliferation and WMD while excluding India.

On the double standards of the West on nuclear issue, Dr Selim questioned that while tackling the question of WMD was most important, why were the Muslims, Arabs and Iranians being targeted, and why was no demand to Israel being made for opening its nuclear installations.

He pointed out that Syria was being forced by the EU to destroy WMDs though the same condition was not imposed on Israel. "If you are asking me to eliminate my capability now, and allowing Nato and Israel to do this after years, that will not create equilibrium," he said.

"If we cannot agree on mutual reduction of weapons, whether nuclear or conventional, then a balance of terror can become a CBM." He said that Israel had recently mounted nuclear payloads on Dolphin submarines which could target Iran and the South Asian region.

Egypt, he said, was very much concerned over 200 nuclear warheads kept by Israel and had emphasized the need for reaching an equilibrium between Israel and the Arabs who must feel secure.

"If the other side has developed, then you have the right, for national security, to create that equilibrium," he said, adding that Pakistan's decision of going for a deterrence was justified. He, however, made it clear that he was not in favour of proliferation.

In the context of Middle East, he said that if the construction of Jewish settlements was frozen, if not totally wiped out, it would have significant impact on the peace process.

Dealing at length with the CBMs during Cold War era, he drew attention to their application in the post-Cold War period and said the EU advocated pursuit of a CBMs strategy in resolving certain conflicts, such as the Arab-Israeli and Cyprus conflicts.

However, it refrained from pursuing such strategy in other conflicts, such as the conflicts with Iraq (1990-present) - over its invasion of Kuwait and non-implementation of Security Council resolutions, and Libya (1992-present) over Lockerbie issue.

In the first case, no CBMs were suggested to deal with the problem of the Iraqi occupation of Kuwait, and military force and severe economic sanctions were used not only to dislodge Iraq from Kuwait, but also to force it to comply with relevant SC resolutions.

Libya was excluded from the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership; severe economic sanctions were applied; and no compromise was accepted until the Libyan economy was badly hurt.

This trend, he said, persisted in the case of the conflict involving Yugoslavia (1998-present) over the question of Kosovo. Yugoslavia was almost destroyed because it did not accept Nato's version of the Kosovo settlement.

In these cases, the question of CBMs application was never envisaged and the European actors resorted to a 'compliance' rather than CBMs strategy.

The cases of Iraq and Yugoslavia, Dr Selim said, showed that military force could be applied to resolve certain conflicts. He was of the view that credibility of the concept of CBMs was likely to be jeopardized if it was established that they were applicable only in certain conflicts without articulating the selection criteria.

Dr Selim claimed that the two conditions, which paved the road to the effective application of CBMs into inter-European relations, were lacking.

The Middle East was characterized by a high degree of strategic disequilibrium and no arms control agreements had been reached to deal with this situation.

"Arms control talks within the framework of the Middle Eastern multi-lateral talks have been derailed because of Israel's insistence on focusing exclusively on the strategy of CBMs rather than dealing with the question of its nuclear arsenal.

"It is inconceivable to establish Arab-Israeli peace whereas one actor possesses nuclear weapons. Being a democracy is not a guarantee against Israel's non-use of nuclear weapons, as history tells us that democracies do use nuclear weapons," he said while referring to the dropping of atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki by the US.

The scholar said that Egypt had suggested instantaneous and simultaneous removal of all categories of weapons of mass destruction from the Middle East, entering into meaningful arms control agreements, and resolving the territorial issues in Arab-Israeli relations through withdrawal from the territories occupied in 1967 and establishment of a Palestinian state.

It was argued that these measures would drastically change the ME strategic environment in a way that would pave the road to an effective application of CBMs into Middle Eastern relations.

He mentioned that there were major conflicts in the ME over the Arab territories occupied in June 1967. There were no agreements over the definition of political borders in the region, and Israel had not recognized a Palestinian state.

Perhaps the major territorial disputes in the region were those related to the Arab-Israel and Cyprus conflicts. Structural and conceptual changes were needed in the direction of coordination between western security institutions, creation of multi-lateral institutions for north-south dialogue on CBMs, and a genuine shift towards consensualism and reciprocity, he said.

Earlier, Director of the ASCE Dr Naveed Ahmad Tahir introduced the guest speaker.