Pak N-diplomacy comes to a full stop

This is precisely what I meant by saying that Munir Akram and Shirin Mazari were out.

Monday, July 28, 2008

By Shireen M Mazari

ISLAMABAD: The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) has finally sprung into action to counter the Indian efforts to get a country-specific safeguards agreement from the IAEA and then move on to seeking similar concessions from the Nuclear Suppliers’ Group (NSG).

Pakistan has always supported a criteria-based principle for any exception to the nonproliferation norms to be made by the IAEA and the NSG. In this regard, Pakistan had already sent a letter to the IAEA Board of Governors (BoG), which will be taking up the Indian dictated IAEA draft in the coming days, asking for a vote in the BoG on this issue.

There were two reasons behind this move: One, to expose those member states that have been holding forth on nonproliferation but would go along with making an exception to India; and, two, to see how many of Pakistan’s Arab allies, who are presently members of the IAEA Board would vote. The US and India are seeking an agreement by consensus without putting the issue to vote.

In addition to a letter from Pakistan’s ambassador to Austria and the IAEA, as part of the MFA’s strategy on this issue, the foreign secretary also wanted to send a letter to the NSG states asking them to adopt a criteria-based approach for sensitive technology transfers rather than country-based exceptions.

The third leg of the MFA strategy was to send an envoy - preferably a seasoned diplomat - to our ally China to get them to lend support to the Pakistani approach vis-a-vis the IAEA and the NSG.

Unfortunately, as soon as the Pakistani letter was sent to the IAEA BoG, the US got moving and conveyed to Islamabad that Pakistan had already given a commitment, through a previous Foreign Secretary, that it will offer no opposition to the US pursuing India-specific exceptions at the IAEA and the NSG.

As a result the MFA was asked to stop all activities meant to counter India-US moves on safeguards and technology exports at the IAEA and the NSG respectively. The net result has been that all diplomatic efforts by Pakistan have come to a grinding halt and the special envoy’s mission had to be aborted midway.

This despite the fact that many Western IAEA and NSG members are firm adherents to the non-proliferation regime and are uncomfortable with the Indo-US nuclear deal - which is why the US and India do not want to put the safeguards agreement to vote in the IAEA BoG. Incidentally, the halting of the MFA’s diplomacy took place while the foreign secretary was in India for talks.

It is important to remember that Pakistan has been signing the normal non-NPT member states’ Safeguards Agreement with the IAEA, seeking no exit clauses or other exceptions. Interestingly, although the US has consistently and publicly stated that it will not sign a nuclear deal with Pakistan on similar lines to the Indo-US nuclear deal, Pakistan’s new de jure foreign minister has naively sought to declare, like his predecessors, that Pakistan will seek such a deal.

Some outsiders inducted in the Foreign service by the present government have been intervening in foreign policy decisions. At international moots, they check and rewrite all speeches prepared by the MFA. They allegedly informed the foreign secretary that the MAF should stop focusing on China as Pakistan’s major ally because now there was going to be a major reorientation towards the US and India. Perhaps that is why the prime minister has chosen to go to the US before visiting our ally in good times and bad, China. Could that also be the reason for negotiating with the Indian-owned Mittal for the exploitation of Thar coal rather than the Chinese companies with whom Pakistan had been negotiating for the last few years?
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