Zia denies that Pakistan plans nuclear weapon

Press, 22 August 1979, Page 8

Zia denies that Pakistan plans nuclear weapon

NZPA-Reuter Jeddah, Saudi Arabia The Pakistani President (General Zia-Ul-Haq) has denied that his country plans to make a nuclear bomb despite persistent reports, chiefly from the United States, that such plans were continuing. General Zia said Pakistan’s nuclear programme was designed to acquire nuclear technology because of growing energy shortages from other sources and the high cost of imported oil. “By 1983 we will have to find alternatives or we will be in trouble,” he said in an interview with the EnglishLanguage “Arab News” during his present visit to Saudi Arabia. “The United States wants to prevent us from making a bomb, even though we have no such intention,” the Pakistani leader said. “If we wanted to, nobody could stop us anyway.”

General Zia said: "Even our friends who used to help

us are being pressured by the U.S. to curtail aid.” The President said the latest round of oil price increases had raised Pakistan’s oil bill by $2OO million, with a total outlay of $935 million expected for the 1980 fiscal year. Oil was running away with 30 per cent of the country’s Budget. President Zia said his Government was coming under intense American pressure to abandon its nuclear programme. The United States had not pledged its usual $4O million aid programme to Pakistan for this year. It had also opposed for the second successive year a Pakistani request for a rescheduling of its debt repayments to a consortium of Western aidgivers. American diplomats had told General Zia that the United States was singling out Pakistan because it had no nuclear capability yet, while doing nothing against countries that had nuclear capability.