LIFTING OF ARMS EMBARGO Arab loans may help Pakistan

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33778, 26 February 1975, Page 17

LIFTING OF ARMS EMBARGO Arab loans may help Pakistan

(H.Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright)

WASHINGTON, February 25.

Arab loans could help Pakistan buy American weapons now that a 10-year United States arms embargo has been lifted, according to Pakistani officials in Washington.

But they say that the money will probably not be sufficient for huge purchases of guns, tanks, and planes. The Arab countries have already helped Pakistan, another Moslem nation, with loans primarily to finance oil imports.

The Pakistani Ambassador (Mr Shabzada Yaqub-Khan) said yesterday that he foresaw no Arab loan 1 - for weapons on the immediate horizon, but added he could not rule them out.

India has protested bitterly against the lifting of the embargo, announced by the State Department yesterday.

The ban applied to India and Pakistan, but India is not likely to purchase United States weapons, since it tnakes 80 per cent of its own

arms and receives much of the rest from the Soviet Union. The Indian Ambassador (Mr Triloki Nath Kaul) told reporters yesterday that he had protested against the United States decision on February 19, when he was first informed. He rejected the assertion that the end of the embargo would not lead to a new arms race on the Indian sub-continent.

“We do not accept or agree that the lifting of the arms embargo will not lead to an arms race or hinder

the process of normalisa- ’ tion . . Mr Kaul told a news conference. He said that India and Pakistan could solve their differences in line with the 1972 Simla agreement. “The trouble in the past has been that outside Powers, especially some of the Great Powers and, in particular, the United States of America, have taken a partisan attitude on the problems of the sub-continent and thus encouraged tension and conflict, even perhaps without intending to do so. “The lifting of the arms embargo further reduces the credibility of United States assurances which have proved inoperative in the nast. It shows that the United States Administration’s policy towards the sub-continent is based on the concept of power,, balance of power, and of creating an influence through supnly of arms — a policy that has failed in the sub-continent and some other adioining areas.” But Mr Yaqub-Khan said that Pakistan only wanted to modernise its Armed Forces. “The quantum we could purchase would not justify the degree of breast-beating and tribulation it has triggered all around,” he said. The State Denartment said that the United States saw no reason why the recent improvement in relations with India could not continue. United States officials braced for expected Indian demonstrations. Thev confirmed that the arrival of Mr William Saxbe, scheduled to present his credentials as new United States Ambassador to India yesterday, had been delayed so that it would not coincide with the lifting of the embargo.