ME

US lawmaker asks India to sign formal export control regime

16/01/2004 at 15:11:58

Date line: NEW DELHI
The United States would be willing to open a new chapter in military partnership with nuclear-capable India provided New Delhi signed a formal export control regime with Washington, visiting US lawmaker Mark Kirk said Friday.

The House of Representatives member from Illinois state said the partnership would reach the level of Washington’s ties with Israel but India must take “a specific step”, which was not “politically difficult”.

“The US is very keen to make India a strategic partner, much like Israel. But there is specific step that India must take which is to come up with a formal export control regime,” he told reporters in New Delhi.

India, after conducting a series of nuclear weapons tests in 1998, placed a moratorium on such exercise and said it had layers of checks against the export of critical technology to non-nuclear weapons states.

Kirk, who serves on three Congressional committees, said Washington had no doubts on New Delhi’s self-imposed restrictions.

“India has been very responsible and is not exporting key technologies. But we are looking at export control which is not politically difficult but would require a lot of work from technical experts to harmonise it with Western policies.

“If there was a strategic partnership in place, then India and the US could work together in the defence field on developing the early warning system, battle management and the interception of missiles,” Kirk said.

“Battle management requires millions of codes and we are hoping to work with India which is a recognised technological power,” he said of India’s growing influence in the global information technology sector.

Kirk also said the terrorist network led by Osama bin Laden, was turning to illegal narotics trafficking to fund its operations.

“We think the al-Qaeda not being funded by other countries is turning to narco-terrorism,” he said, adding that Afghan President Hamid Karzai was likely to turn to India for expertise to conduct elections in his war-torn nation.

Kirk’s comments came four days after US President George W. Bush promised closer links with India over nuclear regulation and safety, missile defence and said both would work together on civilian uses of space technology.

The US slapped a raft of sanctions on India after its nuclear tests, resulting in a freeze on exchanges on nuclear and critical high-tech sectors.

A decision to resume contact on nuclear safety was taken in November 2001 at a meeting between Bush and Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee.

India’s 14 nuclear reactors, three of which are more than 30 years old, supply about three percent of the country’s electricity.

India also has missiles capable of delivering nuclear heads to nearby countries, but it is committed to a “no first use pledge” with rival Pakistan.

Phrozen

US is playing on both the sides…

http://www.dawn.com/2004/01/15/top8.htm

US proposes talks on strategic issues
By Qudssia Akhlaque

ISLAMABAD, Jan 14: The Bush administration has made a comprehensive proposal to Pakistan for a strategic dialogue covering technical areas where the US has agreed to cooperate with India, informed sources told Dawn on Wednesday.

These areas include civilian nuclear activities, civilian space programmes and high-technology trade as well as missile defence. The US administration reiterated the offer to Pakistan through high level official contacts recently, the sources maintained.

“In-depth consultations on the areas with the focus on technical aspects and modalities are likely to commence soon,” a source privy to the process told Dawn.

According to the source the proposed dialogue could be at both political and official levels, separately or simultaneously. On Wednesday a senior US administration official was also quoted as saying that the US was offering Pakistan a dialogue with the specific objective of entering into a strategic partnership with it.

This statement coincided with the formal announcement by US President George Bush of the US having entered into a strategic partnership with India to expand cooperation in three specific areas.

When Foreign Office spokesman Masood Khan was asked to comment on the US administration’s offer to Pakistan of holding a strategic dialogue, he said: “This has been a continuing dialogue for quite some time and we look forward to the US cooperating with us in similar fields.”

Both civilian and military bureaucracy have welcomed the US proposal as a very positive development that could lead to a constructive and meaningful strategic cooperation between the two countries.

The closest to a strategic dialogue that Pakistan and US have had so far has been the peace and security dialogue, which started in June 1998 in Washington. The US offer of a dialogue aimed at a strategic partnership with Pakistan is widely seen as a logical culmination of the ongoing peace and security dialogue between Islamabad and Washington.

The US administration had briefed Pakistan about its decision to enter into a major strategic partnership with India in the last quarter of 2003 in Washington and Islamabad. Pakistan had serious reservations on this development. President Pervez also conveyed his displeasure on this front in an unscheduled meeting with US Secretary of State Colin Powell just ahead of his talks with President Bush last September. President Musharraf was then given the commitment by the US administration that it would soon make some concrete offer to Pakistan as well.

m.ileduets

Old an new alliences
Today in the NY-Times:

“U.S. Officials Try to Trace Illegal Sale of Nuclear Technology
By ERIC LICHTBLAU

Published: January 17, 2004

WASHINGTON, Jan. 16 — American law enforcement officials said Friday that they were trying to determine whether the Pakistani government was involved in a plot by a South African businessman to export trigger devices that could be used for nuclear weapons.

“That’s one possibility that we’re investigating,” said one official who spoke on condition of anonymity. “We know these devices went to Pakistan. What we’re still investigating is where exactly they ended up and who was behind it.”

Asher Karni, an Israeli who lives in South Africa, was arrested in Denver earlier this month on charges that he had illegally exported the devices to Pakistan without a license. In court documents, the American authorities charge that Mr. Karni, 50, was at the center of a global operation that used front companies and false billing records to route the trigger devices from a private manufacturer in Salem, Mass., to South Africa, the United Arab Emirates and ultimately Pakistan.

The devices, high-speed electrical switches called triggered spark gaps, are typically used in hospitals to break apart kidney stones. But hospitals usually keep only a few on hand — not the 200 that Mr. Karni is accused of ordering from an American supplier, PerkinElmer Optoelectronics, of Salem.

A Pakistani diplomat in Washington said Pakistan would cooperate in the investigation, and that it had no knowledge of the plot that American authorities laid out.

Mr. Karni remains in federal custody in Denver. On Monday, United States Magistrate Judge Michael Watanabe agreed to free him on $75,000 bond and confine him to the home of a rabbi in Potomac, Md., pending his trial.

But the Justice Department objected, saying Mr. Karni is “an extreme flight risk,” and the judge agreed to delay his release until a hearing is held next week. Mr. Karni’s attorney could not be reached Friday.

“We are not involved in any proliferation activity,” said the Pakistani official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. “There’s no basis for this, no question about it.”

But American officials said they had come to focus on the possibility that the Pakistani government was involved for several reasons, beginning with the large number of devices that Mr. Karni ordered.

In addition to that, a Pakistani businessman named Humayn Khan who received the trigger devices had ties to the Pakistani military and appears to have been involved in jet fighter production, American officials said.

“This case represents one of the most serious types of export violations imaginable,” federal prosecutors said earlier this week in a court filing in Denver. “Karni has exported goods that are capable of detonating nuclear weapons to a person he knows has ties to the Pakistani military.”

The government’s filing said: “Although Pakistan’s current leadership has vowed to curb the spread of this technology, that region of the world remains volatile, and Islamic militants in the area have made no secret of their desire to obtain nuclear weapons. The threat that Karni’s conduct posed was real.”

The government’s investigation appears to have begun last summer, when investigators with the Commerce Department and the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement received information from an anonymous source in South Africa about the possible diversion of American equipment to Pakistan and India, according to court papers.

In an affidavit filed in the case, James R. Brigham, an agent with the Commerce Department, said Mr. Karni tried to buy up to 400 of the trigger devices.

Investigators learned that Mr. Karni, working through a New Jersey contact, placed an order last year with PerkinElmer for 200 triggers at a cost of $89,400, Mr. Brigham said. Mr. Karni told the manufacturer the devices were to be used at a South African hospital, but officials at PerkinElmer said most hospitals would need no more than five or six, Mr. Brigham said.

Working with government officials, the company agreed secretly to disable the first shipment of 66 triggers by closing off the gas in-take lines, the government’s affidavit said. But officials said it was not known if Mr. Karni had succeeded in exporting any other working triggers to Pakistan.

Earlier, Mr. Karni tried to buy triggers in France and have them sent directly to Pakistan, American officials said. But that effort failed when the sales agent told Mr. Karni that he would have to get an American export license, officials said.”

Especially the part on US-officials believing that the Pakistani government might be behind this sheds a interesting light on the current US- Pakistan relations. It really looks as if the US is about to drop Pakistan and seek an alliance with India instead.

Haley

Bush unveils deeper US-India space, nuclear cooperation

MONTERREY, Mexico (AFP) Jan 12, 2004
US President George W. Bush announced Monday that the United States and India would deepen cooperation on civilian nuclear activities, civilian space programs and high-technology trade.
In a statement released on the margins of the Summit of the Americas here, Bush said he and Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee had also agreed “to expand our dialogue on missile defense.”

“Cooperation in these areas will deepen the ties of commerce and friendship between our two nations, and will increase stability in Asia and beyond,” the president said.

The two nations will take “a series of reciprocal steps,” including expanded engagement on nuclear regulatory and safety issues, missile defense, and seek ways to enhance cooperation in peaceful uses of space technology, said Bush.

On the high-technology trade front, the two sides will tighten restrictions aimed at curbing the spread of weapons of mass destruction.

Bush called the expanded cooperation “an important milestone in transforming the relationship between the United States and India. That relationship is based increasingly on common values and common interests.”

“We are working together to promote global peace and prosperity,” he said. “We are partners in the war on terrorism and we are partners in controlling the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and the means to deliver them.”

In Washington, a senior State Department official said the “strategic partnership” agreement was the result of discussions begun between Bush and Vajpayee in 2001 but stressed that it would be at least months and maybe years before it would come to meaningful fruition.

“My guess is this is going to take some months if not some years to play out because there is a lot of work to be done to fill out the details here,” the official told reporters on condition of anonymity.

To benefit, India must enact or tighten up its export control laws to ensure that Indian firms do not transfer sensitive technology to suspect nations, groups or individuals, the official said.

“What we’re offering is contingent on specific steps on the part of India to protect against diversion or unauthorized use of any US exports and to address our broader export control concerns,” the official said.

The official said the agreement was unrelated to recent progress on India’s resuming a dialogue with nuclear rival Pakistan over the disputed region of Kashmir, over which the two countries have fought to of their three wars.

And the official insisted that the deal did not constitute tacit US approval or acceptance of India’s nuclear weapons or ballistic missile programs.

“This is not about diminishing in any way our concern about India’s nuclear weapons or ballistic missile programs,” the official said, adding that US assistance to such developments was precluded.

“We won’t, in any of the things that may come in this program, do anything to support India’s nuclear weapons of ballistic program,” the official said.

The official said the United States had informed the Pakistani government about the agreement before the White House made the announcement and that Washington was offering Islamabad a similar dialogue on missile defense.

Although Monday’s agreement was years in the making, the official said it did not come with any presumption that domestic US laws on the transfer of sensitive technology would be changed, making the effect of the deal uncertain.