‘US clear on need to support Pakistan’s energy sector’

LAHORE – The US has been very clear on the need to support Pakistan’s energy development at the Nuclear Suppliers Group forum, Robert O Blake, Jr, the assistant US secretary on Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs, said late on Friday. He was speaking at a press conference in Beijing after the conclusion of discussions with counterparts from the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Asked about US concerns over the China-Pakistan nuclear agreement, Blake said the US expected China to abide by the commitments it made when it joined the NSG in 2004.
“…in particular we think the construction of new nuclear reactors such as the Chasma 3 and 4 would be inconsistent with those commitments,” he said.
Asked if the US was relatively quiet over the issue, Blake said the US had “been very clear in the NSG context about that position, but we’ve also been very clear on the need to support Pakistan’s energy development. Pakistan is facing quite severe energy shortages in many parts of the country so the US has, I think, been in the lead in many cases in trying to help Pakistan to deal with those challenges and to not only refurbish some of its existing capacity to make it more efficient to help meet those demands, but to look at new ways to help, again, meet those energy challenges”.
He said the US was making “very significant efforts” to help the development of Pakistan. Blake said it was important that China observed its NSG obligations, but the international community should do “as much as possible” to help Pakistan meet its energy needs. He said that India had little concern over the Pakistan-China nuclear project.
Blake said the US had been encouraged by the progress made on the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India pipeline, He said a longer-term challenge in a country like Pakistan was where would “the jobs for its growing population going to come from”?
“Pakistan’s population is going to double over the next 20 years. I think one of the most promising areas for providing economic opportunity for the young people of Pakistan is trade with India, but also trade with a wider region. That’s why we think the Afghan-Pakistan Transit Trade Agreement should be expanded to include some of the Central Asian countries,” he added.