Pakistan has launched a diplomatic offensive by lobbying with western governments and China seeking entry into the 48-member group.
In 2010, Washington announced backing for India joining the elite club. But Pakistan – which has been trying to move closer to Asian powerhouse China as Islamabad’s ties with Washington have suffered because of its continued support to terrorism – has warned against allowing its rival into the NSG.
The Barack Obama administration has announced backing for Indian membership of four regimes: the Nuclear Suppliers Group, the Missile Technology Control Regime, the Australian Group, which aims to reduce the spread of chemical and biological weapons, and the Wassenaar Arrangement, a multinational effort to control the transfer of conventional arms and dual-use technology.
Pakistan wants a similar civilian nuclear agreement with the United States to help meet its growing energy needs after Washington sealed a nuclear supply deal with New Delhi in 2008. Pakistan says granting India membership of four key multilateral export control regimes would further destablise the volatile nuclear-armed South Asian region.
It contends that India’s entry to NSG would legitimise its status as a de jure nuclear weapons state, leaving Pakistan as the only outcast ineligible for civil nuclear trade with the NSG members.
But Washington is reluctant, largely because a Pakistani nuclear scientist, Abdul Qadeer (AQ) Khan, admitted in 2004 to transferring nuclear secrets to North Korea, Iran and Libya.
Uday Bhaskar, Indian expert on security and strategic affairs, said Pakistan, with its dubious credentials on nuclear proliferation, is unlikely to be accepted in the group.
“If you look at past 30-35 years, Pakistan has had a very major role in nuclear proliferation. We are talking about AQ Khan, Pakistan-North Korea, Pakistan-Iran and the whole network of clandestine nuclear proliferation. Now, under the circumstances, Pakistan’s own profile as a country that has been supporting terrorism, it is often seen as a cradle of terrorism and the way in which Pakistan is engaged in this whole, what is called as the‘Walmart of nuclear proliferation’, do not really in any way recommend Pakistan as a ‘responsible state’,†Bhaskar said on Saturday.
Bhaskar said the then President Pervez Musharraf was forced to act against Abdul Qadeer Khan by placing him under house arrest in 2004 after being confronted by the United States with evidence of the scientist’s role in the nuclear black market.
“A Q Khan is a whole Pandora’s Box. It’s just that General Musharraf with the tacit support of the Americans was able to put a lid on it. But, in a way people have forgotten the enormity of what AQ Khan had done. He had created a whole illicit network which involved many countries, many institutions and when people keep saying how big the operation was, I often remind them that the Pakistani air force used to transport material for AQ Khan. Can there be a greater testimony about the degree to which the Pakistani establishment and the military in particular had been complicit or had been part of the same illicit network,†added Bhaskar.
While Islamabad opposes alleged favoritism to New Delhi in the field of civil nuclear energy, it is continuing its drive to develop its nuclear programme, both weapon and civilian, with assistance from Beijing. It has three ongoing plutonium production plants at Khushab while the fourth one is under construction. Currently, two nuclear power plants are under construction at Chashma and Karachi while three more such plants have been announced, all with Chinese assistance.
A U.S. think-tank, Council on Foreign Relations, has warned that Pakistan’s nuclear cache could expand massively in the next five years to reach up to 200 nuclear devices by 2020.
Pakistan has also blocked the start of international talks on a fissile material cutoff treaty (FMCT) at the 65-member Conference on Disarmament (CD) in Geneva. The treaty, if signed, would ban the production of fissile materials for weapons purposes; fissile materials, namely plutonium and highly enriched uranium, which are the key ingredients in nuclear weapons.
Reshmi Kazi, Associate Fellow at the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (IDSA), in New Delhi, said Pakistan’s record of nuclear proliferation could thwart its efforts to join the group.
“The NSG will not give the deal, will not give the exemption to Pakistan without checking on the records. There have been outreach programmes on the part of NSG representatives to check on their proliferation status that is taking place. So, I am sure that the NSG is going to take a very good stock of the situation on Pakistan’s proliferation record,†said Kazi.
Kazi also said Pakistan has yet to prove that it is serious in fighting terrorism.
“It has to come clean on its proliferation record, it has to take care of the terrorism that is taking place in the region and also on our side, cross-border terrorism, it has to become much more responsible in the sense that a responsible nation would like to definitely have good relationship with its neighbors,†said Kazi.
The U.S. has often nudged Pakistan to do more and take action against various militant groups.
During a visit to Pakistan in January this year, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said Pakistan must fight militant groups that threaten Afghan, Indian and U.S. interests.
Nuclear-armed Pakistan has long been suspected by the West of playing a double game, fighting some militants while supporting those its generals have regarded as strategic assets to be used against rivals and neighbours, India and Afghanistan.
Visiting Pakistan after going to India, Kerry said all militant groups should be targeted to bring security to the region.
“Terror groups like the Pakistani and Afghan Taliban, the Haqqani network, Lashkar-e-Taiba and other groups continue to pose a threat to Pakistan, to its neighbours and to the United States,†Kerry told reporters listing some of the most feared groups.
Pakistan has the fastest growing nuclear arsenal in the world and in a decade could pass France as the fourth-largest nuclear power. But an assault on a naval base in Karachi and the General Headquarters in Rawalpindi in 2009 give Western leaders nightmares about militants acquiring nuclear materials, or worse, an entire weapon.
