The Obama administration is being coy about how it will respond to Pakistan’s desire to be a recognized nuclear weapons power and forge an atomic energy deal as the two countries prepare for high-level strategic talks this week.
Ahead of two days of wide-ranging discussions intended to improve a decade of strained ties, senior administration officials would make no promises on what Pakistan considers to be at the top of the list of its priorities for winning international respect and domestic development.
U.S. officials have concerns about Pakistan’s record in transferring nuclear technology to states such as Libya and North Korea, and neither Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton nor special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan Richard Holbrooke would offer any promises.
They said they were ready to consider Pakistani proposals on the nuclear issue but refused to commit to any specific support.
“We’re going to listen with great interest to anything our Pakistani friends say,” Holbrooke told reporters on Tuesday at an event at the Pakistani Embassy in Washington.
He would not comment further and refused to address the question of formally recognizing Pakistan as a nuclear weapons state, saying it would not be productive for him to discuss it.
Pakistani officials say they would like a civil nuclear cooperation pact with the United States similar to the one its nuclear rival, India, has. Such a deal probably would require at least tacit acknowledgement that Pakistan, which detonated its first nuclear bomb in 1998, is a legitimate nuclear armed power, which the United States has refused to do.
It also would require approval from Congress, which only reluctantly agreed to the civil nuclear deal with India despite there being far fewer proliferation concerns. But that has not dampened Pakistan’s eagerness for an agreement, which it believes is essential to it overcoming crippling energy shortages.
“I think India and Pakistan, we have been in this together in South Asia, so what is good for India should be good for Pakistan,” Pakistani Foreign Secretary Salman Bashir said at the same event with Holbrooke.
He added that the fact that Pakistan is a nuclear weapons state “is a reality” that cannot be denied. “There is no doubt about that,” he said.
Bashir added that energy in general -- nuclear, clean coal and hydropower projects -- was the key to Pakistan’s development.
Clinton, who will be leading the U.S. delegation in talks that Wednesday and Thursday at the State Department, would not commit to a position on the nuclear matter.
“I’m sure that that’s going to be raised, and we’re going to be considering it, but I can’t prejudge or pre-empt what the outcome of our discussions will be,” she said in an interview with Pakistan’s Express TV Group that aired Tuesday.
Among other issues to be considered at the talks, which will involve Defence Secretary Robert Gates and other top military officials along with their Pakistani counterparts, will be defence and security, development, agriculture and water.
Holbrooke described the so-called Strategic Dialogue as the first time in recent history that the United States and Pakistan have sat down at senior levels for sustained discussions on these topics. Previous rounds, he said, were neither “strategic” nor a real “dialogue.”
That led to misgivings and mistrust in Pakistan, which saw the United States as interested only in the country for security reasons in the aftermath of 9/11 due to its proximity to and involvement in Afghanistan, he said. “We have to correct that,” Holbrooke said.
Meanwhile, Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Mahmood Qureshi said this week’s round of meetings were aimed at putting Islamabad on more equal footing with the United States.
“That’s the only way it can move forward, is making a partnership of it,” Qureshi told reporters after leaving a Tuesday meeting with lawmakers at the Capitol, including the Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman, Democratic Sen. John Kerry.
U.S. officials agree the talks are aimed more at fostering partnership in multiple areas, rather than responding to a laundry list of requests for more aid.
On the security front, the United States is considering new ways to enhance Pakistan’s ability to fight insurgents along its border as they and other Western officials cheer recent arrests of influential Taliban officials by Pakistani authorities.
Defence Department Press Secretary Geoff Morrell said the United States is looking at ways to expedite payments to Pakistan to reimburse it for counterterrorism operations. Pakistan says it is owed nearly $2 billion in such payments.
Also of interest is whether the United States can do more to provide protective equipment to Pakistani forces.
“We clearly recognize the incredible sacrifice that’s been made,” Morrell said, noting that some 2,700 Pakistani troops died last year in the tribal areas along the Afghanistan border.
According to another senior defence official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because no decision has been made, the United States might provide Pakistan with some aircraft for surveillance and intelligence gathering, such as Hawker Beechcraft Corp.’s King Air 350 planes.
Officials also are in discussions with the Pakistanis to give them some unarmed drones for surveillance. The unmanned aircraft probably would be small to medium sized drones which do not carry missiles.
