The Obama administration is exploring a deal with Pakistan that would limit the scope of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal, the fastest-growing on earth. The discussions are the first in the decade since one of the founders of its nuclear program, Abdul Qadeer Khan, was caught selling the country’s nuclear technology around the world.
The talks are being held in advance of the arrival of Pakistan’s prime minister, Nawaz Sharif,
in Washington next week. They focus on American concern that Pakistan
might be on the verge of deploying a small tactical nuclear weapon —
explicitly modeled on weapons the United States put in Europe during the
Cold War to deter a Soviet invasion — that would be far harder to
secure than the country’s arsenal of larger weapons.
But
outside experts familiar with the discussions, which have echoes of the
Obama administration’s first approaches to Iran on its nuclear program
three years ago, expressed deep skepticism that Pakistan is ready to put
any limitations on a program that is the pride of the nation, and that
it regards as its only real defense against India.
The
discussions are being led by Peter R. Lavoy, a longtime intelligence
expert on the Pakistani program who is now on the staff of the National
Security Council. White House officials declined to comment on the talks
ahead of Mr. Sharif’s visit.
But
the central element of the proposal, according to other officials and
outside experts, would be a relaxation of the strict controls imposed on
Pakistan by the Nuclear Suppliers Group, a loose affiliation of nations
that try to control the proliferation of weapons.
“If
Pakistan would take the actions requested by the United States, it
would essentially amount to recognition of rehabilitation and would
essentially amount to parole,” said George Perkovich, vice president for
studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, who has
maintained contacts with the Pakistani nuclear establishment.
“I think it’s worth a try,” Mr. Perkovich said. “But I have my doubts that the Pakistanis are capable of doing this.”
David Ignatius, a columnist for The Washington Post, first disclosed the
exploratory talks in a column a week ago. Since then, several other
officials and outside experts have talked in more detail about the
effort, although the White House has refused to comment.
The
activity of Mr. Khan, who lives in retirement in a comfortable
neighborhood in Islamabad after many years of house arrest, prompted
more than a decade of American-led punishment of Pakistan’s nuclear
enterprises. He ran what amounted to the world’s most sophisticated
black market in the equipment needed to make nuclear fuel, and he did
business with Iran, North Korea and Libya.
When Libya turned over the equipment it bought, in late 2003, it included a nearly complete design for one of China’s first nuclear weapons.
Pakistani
officials denied that any of the country’s leaders knew of Mr. Khan’s
black market activities, a story American officials did not believe
because some of the equipment was shipped on Pakistani Air Force cargo
planes. While Mr. Khan is not under formal restrictions today, he has
not left Pakistan in years and has been prohibited from talking to most
outsiders.
Even before entering office, President Obama
was interested in addressing the Pakistani nuclear problem, considered
by most proliferation experts to be the most dangerous in the world. But
until now, most efforts to manage the problem have been covert.
During
the Bush administration, the United States spent as much as $100
million on a highly classified program to help secure the country’s
nuclear arsenal, helping with physical security and the training of
Pakistani security personnel. Those efforts continued in the Obama
years, with State Department, Energy Department and intelligence
officials meeting secretly, in locales around the world, with senior
Pakistani officials from the Strategic Plans Division that controls the
arsenal.
They
would use those sessions to argue to the Pakistanis that fielding the
small, short-range nuclear weapons, which Pakistan designed to use
against an invading Indian ground force, would be highly risky.
American
officials have told Congress they are increasingly convinced that most
of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal is under good safeguards, with warheads
separated from delivery vehicles and a series of measures in place to
guard against unauthorized use. But they fear the smaller weapons are
easier to steal, or would be easier to use should they fall into the
hands of a rogue commander.
“All
it takes is one commander with secret radical sympathies, and you have a
big problem,” said one former official who dealt with the issue.
The
message appears to have resonated; an unknown number of the tactical
weapons were built, but not deployed. It is that problem that Mr. Lavoy
and others are trying to forestall, along with preventing Pakistan from
deploying some long-range missiles that could reach well beyond India.
But
American leverage has been hard to find. Unlike Iran, Pakistan never
signed the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, the international agreement
that prohibits nations, except for existing declared nuclear states like
the United States, from possessing a nuclear arsenal. Pakistan is not
alone in that distinction: India and Israel also have not signed.
(North Korea left the treaty two decades ago.)
Ordinarily,
any country’s refusal to sign the treaty would preclude American
nuclear cooperation. So Pakistani officials remain angry with the
American decision to enter an agreement with India in 2005 allowing
India to buy civil nuclear technology, even though it remains outside
the treaty and put no limits on its nuclear program. Under that
agreement, India’s nuclear infrastructure was split with a civilian
program that is under international inspection, and a military program
that is not.
Pakistani officials have demanded the same arrangement.
That
does not appear to be on the table. Instead, the United States is
exploring ways to relax restrictions on nuclear-related technology to
Pakistan, perhaps with a long-term goal of allowing the country to join
the Nuclear Suppliers Group, which regulates the sale of the technology.
That would be largely symbolic: Pakistan manages to import or make what
it needs for its nuclear arsenal, and China has already broken ground
on a $9.6 billion nuclear power complex in Karachi. Mr. Sharif presided
over the ceremony.
Source: The NY Times
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