Pakistan has decided not to budge from its stance of opposing the Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty (FMCT) despite intense pressure from the United States and the likely confrontation with Washington next month in New York, where the Obama administration will push Islamabad to sign the pact to halt the production of nuclear bomb making material.
Pakistan is against signing the FMCT because it believes that a ban on fissile material should also cover the existing stocks of bomb-making material along with halting future production. However, some nuclear-armed states including India ask for a production cut-off that does not affect the current stockpiles.
In the wake of the May 2 military operation by US special forces in Abbottabad to kill al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden, relations between Islamabad and Washington were badly affected leading to suspension of intelligence cooperation between the two states against al Qaeda and the Taliban. The escalating tension resulted in a series of rows between Islamabad and Washington, with the former sending back dozens of Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) operatives and military trainers to their country and also imposing restrictions on the movement of US diplomats in Pakistan.
The Obama administration is highly perturbed by these developments and the Pakistani policy makers believe that the increasing pressure by the US on Pakistan to sign the FMCT is also a tool to pressurise Islamabad into restoring complete counter-terrorism cooperation and ending travel curbs imposed on the American diplomats.
“Pakistan’s civilian and military leaders have gone for detailed in-house consultations on the contentious issue of FMCT and they have decided not to succumb to American pressure,” said a diplomatic source here on Sunday, requesting anonymity. He said the Obama administration was most likely to launch a move with support from other world powers to push Pakistan to sign the FMCT next month in New York at the sidelines of the UN General Assembly session.
US officials also claim to have the support of four declared nuclear powers for this move as they have won China’s support as well for finalising the FMCT. But it is not yet clear whether Beijing would back the US move to cap Pakistan’s nuclear capability. The official said Pakistan had decided to resist all international pressure to endorse the FMCT and it was also against any process to discuss and negotiate a US-backed treaty outside the Geneva-based UN Conference on Disarmament (UNCD) that was the only negotiating forum for multilateral disarmament.
The US is trying to have an agreement over the FMCT outside the UNCD because the treaty has been stalled in the body for the last 12 years and Pakistan is seen as the sole irritant in the way of meaningful talks. A senior Pakistani official, who asked not to be named, said Pakistan’s opposition to the FMCT was because of concerns that accepting a ban on future production of fissile material would result in a permanent disadvantage to Pakistan in the nuclear equation with India because of New Delhi’s greater fissile material stockpiles.
He said India’s civilian nuclear deal with the US and its growing conventional military superiority over Pakistan had resulted in pressure on Pakistan’s declared goal of maintaining a credible minimum nuclear deterrent. “The more India goes for offensive and defensive war capabilities, the more Pakistan will need to ensure its own feasible nuclear deterrent,” he said.
Pakistan decides not to sign FMCT despite US pressure
