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US scrambles to restore peace in South Asia

US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright has proposed a meeting of the foreign ministers of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council to try to decrease the possibility of a nuclear clash between India and Pakistan.

Albright, currently in Europe for a NATO council meeting, called the foreign ministers of Russia and China to propose the meeting in about two weeks. The place or the exact agenda has not been set, according to the US state department.

The five permanent members of the Security Council are Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States, all of which are nuclear powers.

State department spokesman James Rubin said the purpose will be to establish a coordinated approach to try to lower the chances of a nuclear clash -- either deliberate or accidental -- between India and Pakistan.

The United States is hoping that the five nations can persuade India and Pakistan to sign agreements renouncing further tests and barring international trade in fissile materials.

The Clinton administration, in consultation with its key allies and others, is busy evolving a strategy to ensure peace and stability in South Asia which, they say, is threatened by the Indian and Pakistani nuclear tests and subsequent provocative rhetoric by their leaders.

Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott, who held a special briefing for the media on the nuclear tests, gave an indication to this effect.

He said the United States was working very hard to come up with the ''most promising and appropriate next step'' to deal with the situation. ''How exactly we use the considerable energy and determination'' displayed by the international community and ''our own unilateral instruments is the subject we are all (currently) working on.''

He said Albright had met key US allies and Russian Foreign Minister Yevgeny Primakov yesterday in Luxembourg, where she had gone to attend the NATO-Russia permanent joint council meeting.

President Clinton spoke to his Russian counterpart Boris Yeltsin on telephone yesterday, during which they agreed to stay in close touch and work together to defuse tensions in South Asia.

Talbott, who recently led an unsuccessful mission to Islamabad to dissuade Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharief from going ahead with nuclear tests, spelt out the immediate and long-term goals of the proposed U S strategy in the region.

"The immediate goals of the United States are to have the two countries renounce any further nuclear testing, sign the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and take decisive steps in reducing tensions between them. Its long-range goals are to establish a political dialogue between India and Pakistan, foster peace in South Asia and prevent an arms race.

''The United States will continue intensive diplomatic efforts to prevent India and Pakistan from continuing nuclear weapons tests,'' he said, adding, ''There may be a spiralling arms race here, but we do not think it is inevitable.''

Both Talbott and White House spokesman Mike McCurry opposed the idea of amending the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty to grant the status of ''nuclear weapons states'' to India and Pakistan, currently available only to five countries -- the US, Russia, Britain, France and China -- simply because they had conducted their tests before 1968.

''We faced situations where other countries that had acknowledged or, at least, were suspected to having some form of a nuclear programme renounced those programmes and came into full compliance,'' McCurry said, in an obvious reference to South Africa, Brazil and Argentina.

He said the International Atomic Energy Agency has a full-scope safeguards programme which had proliferation-related risks attached to it. ''That is the way we monitor compliance with the North Korea agreement that they made in Geneva in 1994,'' he added, indicating the possibility of a similar arrangement to deal with the nuclear programmes of India and Pakistan.

In reply to another question, McCurry said President Clinton's proposed visit to India and Pakistan was still under review. There were strong arguments in favour of his visiting the two countries to press upon their governments and others in the region the ''importance we attach to steps now to de-escalate the tension (there).''

Earlier, Talbott said the nuclear tests by the two countries had created an "extraordinarily serious'' situation. ''It is a regional issue of immense importance, complexity and, I would say, danger, and it does have global implications, which is one of several reasons that the United States has applied itself as vigorously and persistently as it has.''

He said, "The back-to-back tests by India and Pakistan unquestionably represented a setback for the search for peace, security and stability in South Asia and indeed, a setback for the global cause of non-proliferation and moving towards a world where fewer and fewer states are relying on nuclear weapons for their greatness or for their defence.''

India, he pointed out, was known to have aspirations for leadership positions in international bodies. ''As Secretary Albright had said on a number of occasions, to take a step which is so clearly in violation of international norms does not advance those goals for India,'' Talbott said, in an apparent reference to India's claim to a permanent seat in the UN Security Council.

Replying to a question about the US law known as the Glenn Amendment, under which the sanctions have been imposed on the two countries, he said, ''We will try to use these laws as instruments for achieving our long-term strategic objectives, which are not to punish for the sake of punishment. The purpose of these laws, at least in the new reality that we are faced with now that India and Pakistan have both tested, is to try to induce these two countries to do what is in their own mutual as well as individual interests.''

Asked about the attitudes of France, Germany, Russia and Britain in enforcing these sanctions against India and Pakistan, he said, ''We are working through the good offices of the secretary of state, herself in Luxembourg, to develop a plan and a programme for international and multilateral efforts toward a goal on which I think there is a very high degree of consensus.''

In reply to another question, Talbott said, ''I know that some officials on the Indian side have pointed to China as justification for the Indian tests. Our view is that even if it was true, it would not be justification, for reasons we have already talked about. Also, it's our view that the motivation on the Indian side for their test, which led directly to the Pakistani test, was not security concerns about China.''

Rubin added that China was not a reason, but an excuse, for India to test its nuclear devices.

Talbott rejected the notion that the Pakistani tests produced a stabilising balance on the subcontinent that had been tilting India's way after its five tests on May 11 and 13. He likened the situation to fearful symmetry ''made dangerous by the intense rivalry between the two."

Appearing on a US television show, President Clinton's national security adviser, Sandy Berger, said the international community must make it clear to India and Pakistan that they will be "increasingly isolated'' if they continue on their present course.

It was not clear, however, just how broad the international consensus will be on the issue.

Sanctions the Clinton administration must impose under US law will block any renewal of US military and economic aid and put a $ 1.6 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund to Pakistan in jeopardy. McCurry acknowledged there is "limited appetite'' internationally for the kind of sanctions US law requires.

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