U.S. will persist with sanctions against India, Pak.

By Sridhar Krishnaswami

WASHINGTON, APRIL 8. Rejecting the notion that India and Pakistan ``got away'' with the nuclear tests of 1998, a senior Clinton administration official has said that the United States will persist with the ``very strong sanctions'' and that there is a degree of relationship that would not be possible as long as these two South Asian nations pursue a nuclear capability.

`` I don't think they got away with it. Certainly the U.S. maintains very strong sanctions-economic sanctions against both India and Pakistan. And those will persist. There is a degree or a character of a relationship that will never be possible so long as they pursue a nuclear capability'', remarked Mr. John Holum at a Worldnet Programme on Wednesday.

The senior adviser to the U.S. President, Mr. Bill Clinton, on Arms Control further argued that India and Pakistan had lost security as a result of pursuing nuclear capabilities. ``They are now in a circumstance where both are more vulnerable, at a greater risk of nuclear attack from the other. I think over time they'll come to recognise that. So I don't think they got away with it. And I think anybody looking at their situation has to wonder, do I really envy the situation that India put itself in by virtue of conducting nuclear tests in 1998 ?'', Mr. Holum remarked.

Mr. Holum's observations are nothing new or startling given that other senior officials have made these over the last few months. In the run-up to Mr. Clinton's visit to India the Secretary of State, Ms. Madeleine Albright, stressed that the full potential of the relationship could not be realised unless the American concerns and objectives on the non-proliferation agenda were met- a theme that was also put across while Mr. Clinton was in India last month. Asked how the message had to be got through to New Delhi and Islamabad, Mr. Holum said,``... it's going to take some time. Our immediate goal in the near term has to be focussed on steps that will prevent the situation from becoming more dangerous.

That means trying to curb production of fissile material, trying to prevent more tests, trying to deal with the export problem and working on-particularly on the deployment of their capabilities or a reserved approach so that they won't put a hair-trigger on the potential for a nuclear war.''

The official contested the argument that the development of nuclear capability by India and Pakistan had reduced the potential for a conflict at the conventional level.``...the opposite conclusion has been drawn up by a number of analysts in connection with the most recent dust-up in the Kargil region, in part based on the premise that Pakistan concluded, or may have concluded, that its nuclear capacity made it less vulnerable in a conventional context and therefore enabled conventional conflicts which could of course in a more heavily armed situation escalate to nuclear war. So I don't think in that region we should take any comfort from the nuclear developments on both sides'', Mr. Holum said.

Mr. Holum argued that the Non-Proliferation Treaty(NPT), had reached all corners of the world though with some very important and worrisome exceptions.``But more and more countries see it (NPT) as a security instrument. We are obviously hopeful that India, Pakistan and Israel will also over a period of time come to join this regime and move off the path of nuclear capability. But I don't think the fact they are outside the treaty undermines the value of the treaty for its members'', he said.

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