| NEW YORK | RUPEE NEWS | July 30th, 2008 | Moin Ansari | Treachery! Treachery! Treachery! In an apparent reversal of 4 decades of policy based on on the principleof parity with India in the nuclear field, the PPPP has acquiesced to the US demands to hold off. The compliant and obsequies Prime Minister Gilani has put the brakes on all opposition to the US and IAEA plan in allowing India to bypass proliferation laws. The perfidious Mr. Zardari signed over the Thar coal mines to India (instead of China), then tried to shut down the ISI. He then put a stop to Pakistan’s campaign which would have forced a vote at the IAEA.
“In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends”. – Martin Luther King Jr.
“The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact, non-Westerners never do.” – Samuel P. Huntington (author The Clash Of Civilisations)
It is amazing the the side show of impeachment is being given center stage by the complaint media. The efforts to solve the real problems of Pakistan seem to be handled by the regula grade 18 civil servants while the unelected leaders of the major political parties vacation in Dubai and London. It is sad day for Pakistan when the PPPP government halted all efforts to oppose Indian gains in the IAEA. Pakistani nationalists are appalled. Shireen Mazari, herself marganilzed by the Zardari cabal is speaking up against the obvious capitulation and sellout.
The PMLN full of tubelights (flicker and takes a while to turn on) enjoying the summer in London may not have the brains to understand the long term consequences of not opposing the Indian moves.
The irony of this is that Prime Minister Gilani is the White House and has the attention of Mr. Bush. Today the US Congress also stopped the F-16 upgrades.
Vienna: After firing a written salvo against the draft Indian safeguards agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency, Pakistan has backed off and is all set to join the consensus in favour of approving the text when the nuclear watchdog’s Board of Governors meets on August 1.
According to IAEA sources, Pakistan has assured the United States that it will not seek to block approval of the Indian safeguards agreement or call for amendments. Provided Islamabad sticks to its assurances, the August 1 meeting is likely to be a tame affair, though a number of countries are expected to make statements putting on record any misgivings they might have about the deal.
With the smooth approval of the agreement now being taken for granted, vigorous planning is already under way for the nuclear deal’s next step — the grant of a waiver to India by the Nuclear Suppliers Group.
The dates now being discussed are August 21-23, with the meeting likely to take place in Vienna itself. And on Wednesday, Department of Atomic Energy chairman Anil Kakodkar met IAEA Director-General Mohammed el-Baradei for the first round of discussions on an additional protocol to the Indian safeguards agreement.
On July 18, Ambassador Shahbaz wrote a four-page letter to all members of the IAEA BoG as well as the NSG criticising the Indian agreement on a number of grounds and calling on other countries to join it in seeking amendments when the matter was brought before the Board. By July 23, however, Islamabad’s tone changed as its Ambassador made it clear his delegation did not intend to “impede” the process.
During the IAEA Secretariat’s July 25 briefing on the Indian safeguards agreement, say diplomats, the change in the Pakistani attitude was most visible. Though its Ambassador referred to the letter he had sent, the only question he raised was about Pakistan being able to avail of the precedent being set for India. The Secretariat’s representative at the briefing, Vilmos Cserveny, who had been, in fact, the IAEA’s lead negotiator with India, replied that if Pakistan were to negotiate bilateral or multilateral agreements of the kind India had, a similar umbrella safeguards agreement could be drawn up whose approval would then be up to the BoG.
Though Pakistan has indicated where it will stand on August 1, China has yet to reveal its hand, IAEA sources say. Officially, its Ambassador says he is still awaiting instructions from Beijing but the sense at the Vienna International Centre — which houses the IAEA and other U.N. agencies here — is that China will also be part of the consensus in favour of the Indian agreement.
In a statement on Wednesday, U.S. Ambassador Schulte said his government was looking forward to “the Board approving the India safeguards agreement on Friday.”
He said the BoG members have had ample time to study the agreement and ask questions of India and the Secretariat.
Describing the agreement as one which would “allow India to place 14 reactors under international safeguards in the next six years, plus all future civil reactors,” Ambassador Schulte said the safeguarding of these facilities would be “a net gain for the world’s non-proliferation regime.”
