India-US celebrate nuclear deal;China, Pakistan ask questions

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will be in New Delhi this weekend to celebrate a hard-fought nuclear deal that to its critics strikes at the heart of the global non-proliferation regime by allowing India access to nuclear technology despite its refusal to sign the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons Treaty (NPT) and give up a weapons programme.

China and Pakistan are not amused although both stepped aside as they watched an unstoppable Bush administration push the deal through the International Atomic Energy Agency and then the Nuclear Suppliers Group in one of its few foreign policy successes.

A commentary in the state-controlled Beijing Review says Pakistan has reason to worry about the deal and recalls a statement put out by the Pakistan Army last month that warned of negative implications for strategic stability in South Asia. It would have been better if the United States had considered a package approach for both India and Pakistan, which conducted its first nuclear weapon tests two weeks after India, the magazine said, quoting the Pakistan Army statement.

China’s own stand, it said, was that all countries are entitled to make peaceful use of nuclear energy and that bodies like the NSG must address the aspirations of all parties. But it described the India-U.S. deal as a turning point which in the long run would have have a profound impact on international non-proliferation efforts.

“Countries on the nuclear threshold might be tempted by the potential rewards of the Indian approach and pursue their nuclear weapon programs with renewed vigor,” it said. “This new perspective might also affect negotiations over the North Korean and Iranian nuclear issues. ”

Within hours of the U.S. Congress clearing the deal by an overwhelming vote, Pakistan’s prime minister was demanding a similar agreement for his country

“Pakistan will also now make efforts for a civil nuclear (deal) and they will have to accommodate us,” Yousaf Raza Gilani said.

Anti-nuclear arms protest in Mumbaii

And I could’t help thinking about Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto’s oft-repeated remark way back in the 1960s that Pakistan would eat grass if it had to in order to fund its own nuclear weapons should India go nuclear.

And that’s the way it turned out eventually with the foes developing nuclear weapons programmes that ended in the tests of 1998 that shook the world.

So is Pakistan in a position to embark on a similar project to develop its nuclear capabilities now that it sees its core national interests are again at threat from a nuclear India, backed ironically by its ally the United States?

Pakistan, says former foreign secretary Tanvir Ahmed Khan, needs a coherent strategy and maintaining a credible nuclear deterrent will clearly be a part of it especially if New Delhi now proceeds to build an oversized nuclear arsenal.

And is America’s new nuclear partnership with India going to add another complication to an already difficult engagement with Pakistan?