Pakistan ‘‘planning N-test’

Press, 23 April 1980, Page 9

Pakistan ‘‘planning N-test’

NZPA London Pakistan is preparing to conduct an underground nuclear test in the desert area of Baluchistan, near the border with Afghanistan, aimed at showing strength to the Russians, according to a London-based magazine on the Middle East. This week’s issue of “8 Day” quotes “reliable sources” in Quetta, the capital of Baluchistan province as saying that a large area of between 25 and 40 square kilometres has been sealed offby the Pakistani Army for the nuclear bomb test site. “Strict security is being enforced, and the nomads are not being allowed to graze their flocks there” the magazine said. “Everybody is reported to have been forcibly ejected from this area and nobody can enter it.” Chagai, on the western tip of Baluchistan, has its northern border adjoining Afghanistan and its western border on Iran. It is a desert only sparsely populated, mostly by nomadic tribesmen. The Pakistan Government has denied several published reports that it has developed an atomic bomb.

of Baluchistan, has its northern border adjoining Afghanistan and its western border on Iran. It is a desert only sparsely populated, mostly by nomadic tribesmen. The Pakistan Government has denied several published reports that it has developed an atomic bomb. But “8 Days” said a nuclear test so close to Afghanistan “would be General Zia’s most effective way of telling the Russians not to move closer — and beware the man with the bomb.”