ISLAMABAD (PTI): Outgoing US ambassador to Pakistan Nicholas Platt has said the F-16 combat aircraft ordered by Pakistan would not be delivered till the nuclear issue was resolved.
“We have not reached the point where the US president can certify that Pakistan does not possess a nuclear weapon. Hence sanctions involved in the Pressler amendment will continue to bite and corrode our relationship” Platt said in an interview to “The Nation in Lahore.
The US military and economic assistance to Pakistan was suspended in October 1990 on the suspicion that Islamabad’s nuclear program was weapon-oriented. Pakistan has denied the charge.
Platt who leaves for New York early next month to take up his new assignment as the chief of the Asia society told the Newspaper that “if you have a Series of components that comprise a (nuclear) weapon you will have to dismantle it even if it is on a short term or a temporary basis so that under the law Pakistan can say that it does not possess a nuclear weapon.”
The US envoy said nuclear weapons were going out of fashion and it was not enough for Pakistan to merely freeze its nuclear program. Therefore “a certain amount of roll back is necessary” he said.
Notwithstanding the Pressler amendment food and development assistance to Pakistan had been permitted by the U.S. Congress through non-government organizations which had enabled Washington to address issues like population control education and other pressing needs of Pakistan Platt said.
He said that even limited supply of military spare parts had been allowed on a “case to case basis” so long as they did not constitute a new weapon system. However he said that the F-16 planes would continue to be parked till the nuclear tangle was resolved.
Replying to a question Platt said that there was little chance that the Pressler amendment would become inoperative under a new US administration as sentiments against nuclear proliferation were getting stronger day by day.
In this connection he said that Congress had come up with the new foreign assistance bill making it mandatory for the administration to report on the status of nuclear programs of India China and Pakistan every year.
Nothing that India did not have a military sales relationship like Washington has with Islamabad he said even then the US had applied sanctions against India like in the case of sale of rocket engines by Russia to India.
Article extracted from this publication >> November 6, 1992
