ISLAMABAD: As the Pakistan prime minister reached Washington on Sunday to hold talks with US president George W Bush, the ministry of foreign affairs here received an urgent order from the foreign minister, who is also in Washington, to stop all counter-Indo-US nuclear deal activities.
Sources in the foreign office said the change was made under pressure from the US. Before the start of the Pakistan premier’s US visit, the media had reported that the Indo-US nuclear deal was likely to overshadow Yousuf Raza Gilani’s tour, as Islamabad had warned the international community that allowing India to import nuclear fuel and technology from the US could accelerate an arms race between the neighbours.
As India makes frantic efforts to get an IAEA nod for the deal, Islamabad decided to write a strongly-worded letter to the board of governors of the nuclear watchdog, which will take up the Indian-dictated draft on August 1, 2008.
Foreign office sources had last week given two reasons for writing the letter. One, to expose states holding forth on nonproliferation but wanting to make an exception for India; and, two, to see how many of Pakistan’s Arab allies and members of the IAEA board would vote for the deal. They said India and the US were seeking the deal by consensus without putting it to vote.
However, as soon as Pakistan sent the letter to the IAEA, Washington got moving and reminded the high-ups in Islamabad that Pakistan had already made a firm commitment, through the previous foreign secretary, that it would not oppose the US pursuing India-specific exceptions at the IAEA and NSG. After this, the Pakistan foreign affairs ministry was asked to stop all activities to counter India-US moves at the IAEA and NSG.
The net result: All diplomatic efforts by Pakistan to block the deal have come to a grinding halt and the IAEA visit of the Pakistani mission’s special envoy has been aborted.
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