ISLAMABAD, May 31: Pakistan is ready to address the nuclear “proliferation concerns” of the United States and its allies but is not ready to provide any foreign agency “direct access” to Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan.
Reliable sources told Dawn on Wednesday that Islamabad would resist the pressures being exerted in this regard through different means.
Besides airing its “proliferation concerns” frequently, the Bush administration has openly opposed the Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline while denying civilian nuclear cooperation to Pakistan while extending the same to India.
Washington has also made known its unwillingness to remove the negative travel advisory for its citizens and investors wishing to visit Pakistan, demanding “substantial improvement” in the security situation in the country — unsatisfactory partly because of Pakistan’s participation in the United States war on terrorism, according to the sources.
In their recent formal and informal meetings, Pakistani officials told their American counterparts that Pakistan was energy deficient and could not sustain 7-8 per cent GDP growth rate without meeting its energy needs.
“With the Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline still undecided and the US-promoted gas pipeline from Central Asia even more uncertain, Pakistan is constrained to make difficult choices to keep up its growth momentum,” a source said.
Since the United States and the western nations are not ready to oblige over the issue of nuclear energy, all eyes are now on President Pervez Musharraf’s visit to China next month, said the source.
They said that President Musharraf would brief the Chinese leadership about the current status of Pak-USA cooperation in various political, economic and defence fields, and would particularly raise the issue of acquiring a few more nuclear power plants from China during 2006-08.
The Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission, sources said, has informed higher authorities that Pakistan was unlikely to meet its 88,000mw power requirements by 2030 without having more nuclear power plants.
“Chashma-1 is successfully producing 300mw of electricity while the Chashma-2 of 325mw was expected to be completed — and linked to the national grid — ahead of schedule due to huge support from China,” another source said.
However, as the 45-member Nuclear Supplier Group was under tremendous US influence, Pakistan will continue to face difficulties in its quest for meaningful civilian nuclear energy cooperation, a source said.
Under these circumstances, he said, China could be the only hope to come forward and extend further cooperation. “Only last year China had become the member of Nuclear Supplier Group and as such is also under pressure to help remove our growing energy shortages,” he said.
Sources said that Pakistan has again urged the United States to allow its companies to invest in energy projects in the “designated industrial parks”.
President Musharraf had reaffirmed Pakistan’s commitment to nuclear non-proliferation and to the International Atomic Energy Agency’s safeguards in industrial parks when he met US Assistant Secretary of State for South Asia Richard Boucher recently.
President Musharraf, sources said, had also underlined the importance of consolidating and expanding bilateral cooperation in diverse areas in the framework of the Pakistan-US Joint Statement on Strategic Partnership issued during the visit of President Bush to Pakistan in March this year.
