WASHINGTON, March 15: President George Bush has waived democracy-related sanctions on Pakistan, paving the way for the country to receive about $250m of economic aid already approved by Congress this year.
The measures were imposed after the 1999 coup which brought Gen Pervez Musharraf into power.
“The waiver is for a year,” said an official at the Pakistan embassy. “But the sanctions may lapse before the year ends.”
Section 508 of the 1999 Foreign Operations Appropriations Act forbids US assistance to a country “whose duly elected head of government is deposed by military or decree.”
But it also says that assistance to such a country may be resumed “if the president determines that subsequent to the termination of assistance, a democratically elected government has taken office.”
Embassy officials say that the Bush administration has already accepted the Jamali government as the democratically elected government in Pakistan and a formal declaration may be issued during the prime minister’s visit to Washington.
The White House issued an official statement on Friday declaring that President Bush will meet Prime Minister Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali at the White House on March 28.
“This already amounts to an official recognition of the elected government in Pakistan,” an embassy official said.
The waiver comes amid growing speculations about how Pakistan will vote in the UN Security Council on the issue of Iraq. Pakistan is one of the 10 non-permanent members of the Security Council and is among the neutral six who have not yet officially decided how to vote.
In a memorandum to Secretary of State Colin Powell, Mr Bush said a waiver “would facilitate the transition to democratic rule in Pakistan; and is important to US efforts to respond to, deter or prevent acts of international terrorism.”
“I hereby waive, with respect to Pakistan, section 508 of Division E of Public Law 108-7. You are authorized and directed to transmit this determination to the Congress and to arrange for its publication in the Federal Register,” the memorandum said.
The waiver is seen as further confirming Gen Musharraf’s importance as a key US ally in the war against terrorism. Initially, the United States was unwilling to deal with a general who came to power by toppling an elected government but the terrorist attacks of Sept 11 changed his status.
The United States also had imposed another set of sanctions on Pakistan after the tit-for-tat nuclear explosions by India and Pakistan in May 1998.
But in response to Pakistan’s support to the war on terror, the Bush administration has allowed some of the nuclear sanctions to lapse quietly while others were waived. These include sanctions involving weapons sales, government credits and finance and some aid programmes.
At a recent briefing a State Department official described the nuclear sanctions as counterproductive, saying they failed to force India and Pakistan to change their nuclear policies. Both the countries have continued to further develop their nuclear programmes and are also improving their weapon-delivery systems.
“We need to stay engaged with the two countries in order to promote nuclear non-proliferation as sanctions have not been very effective in achieving this goal,” the official said.
