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C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 ISLAMABAD 002840

SIPDIS

EO 12958 DECL: 10/06/2019

TAGS MNUC, KNNP, PREL, PGOV, PTER, PK

SUBJECT: PAKISTANI VIEWS ON FISSILE MATERIAL CUTOFF TREATY

(FMCT) STILL MALEABLE

Classified By: Anne W. Patterson for reasons 1.4 (b) (d)

¶1. (C) Summary: Pakistani officials do not appear to have coalesced on astrategy or position for the mid-January resumption of Conference onDisarmament (CD) discussions on the Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty (FMCT).Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) interlocutors continue to stress the needfor consensus language to bring Pakistan on board a CD work program thatincludes FMCT negotiations, while Strategic Plans Division (SPD) officialsurge a cautious approach that leaves plenty of time for deliberations. In theabsence of a formal decision, continued delay along procedural lines is themost likely default approach. Overt U.S. pressure may solidify this tactic,according to a non-governmental contact who follows disarmament issues. TheGOP strongly desires the resumption of U.S.-Pakistan talks on

nonproliferation, security, and strategic stability before the next CDsession in order to discuss perspectives on the FMCT and come to an“understanding⠀ on each side’s positions. In order to take advantage ofinternal GOP deliberations, Post recommends high-level interventions withPakistan’s military leadership to help build support for proceeding withFMCT negotiations. End summary.

¶2. (C) Over the last two weeks, PolOff canvassed GOP officials in theDisarmament Division at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Director General Dr.Irfan Yusuf Shami and Director Kamran Akhtar), the Arms Control andDisarmament Directorate at the Strategic Plans Division (Director KhalidBanuri and Deputy Director Adil Sultan), as well as one non-governmental

contact (Maria Sultan of the South Asia Strategic Stability Institute(SASSI)) who follows nonproliferation issues, for views on Pakistan’slikely approach to Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty discussions at theConference on Disarmament when the 2010 session convenes in January. Thediscussions with Pakistani interlocutors suggest that Pakistan’s FMCTposition remains somewhat malleable and that GOP officials have not yetcoalesced on a specific position for the next CD session. They alsounderscored the importance of bilateral discussions, particularly with high-level Pakistan military officials, if the USG is to secure Pakistani supportfor beginning CD negotiations.

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Strategic Considerations

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¶3. (C) According to Pakistani counterparts, Pakistan’s FMCT position isshaped by four strategic considerations, which point to a degrading of thedeterrent value of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons and thus make an FMCTdifficult for Pakistan. First, Pakistani officials perceive the U.S.-Indiacivil nuclear cooperation initiative as having unshackled India’s nuclearweapons program. Prior to the initiative, they said, India faced asignificant uranium supply constraint that forced it to choose literallybetween nuclear weapons or nuclear power. Now, however, India is able tosecure foreign-supplied uranium for its civil nuclear power reactors, leavingit free to devote a greater share of its domestically-sourced uranium toproduce plutonium for nuclear weapons. This perceived growth in nuclearweapons production capability blunts any numerical advantage in nuclearweapons Pakistan may have.

¶4. (C) Second, the increase in high-technology defense and space tradebetween India and the United States, Russia, and others has improved thequality of India’s nuclear systems, according to Pakistani thinking. WhilePakistan continues to face significant trade barriers and is subject toexport denial regimes, Pakistani officials believe India is no longer heldback by these constraints and is using market access to improve its nucleardelivery vehicles.

¶5. (C) Third, India’s growing conventional military superiority, coupledwith its Cold Start military doctrine of fast mobilization and rapid strikecapability, poses a new level of threat, according to Pakistani counterparts.Indian plans and capabilities have forced Pakistan to rely more on nuclearweapons and less on conventional military capability to balance Indian force.Maria Sultan of SASSI suggested that Pakistani military planners now focus onthe possibility of a two-front war and believe that Pakistan needs totransform its arsenal to smaller, tactical weapons that could be used on thebattlefield against Indian conventional capabilities. The result of thistrend is the need for greater stocks of fissile material to feed Pakistan’snuclear weapons requirement.

¶6. (C) Finally, Pakistani counterparts point to India’s interest andinvestment in missile defense, even if it will take many years to field acapable system. They believe this indicates that India is not interested in abalance of power, but intends to degrade the value of Pakistan’s nucleardeterrent.

¶7. (C) Taken together, these strategic considerations point Pakistan in thedirection of a larger nuclear force that requires a greater amount of fissilematerial, Pakistani officials argue. By this logic, agreeing to a productioncutoff now does not meet Pakistan’s interests. It is unclear whether GOP

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officials believe Pakistan is ahead of India in terms of nuclear capability,but they point to the combination of India’s capabilities and intentions,as well as its stockpile of fissile material (even if spent nuclear reactor

fuel is not as useful in nuclear weapons), to suggest that there is littleadvantage for Pakistan in trying to lock India into an FMCT now, since bothcountries’ arsenals appear set to grow. Maria Sultan suggested that this isnot the consensus view, however, and that at least some part of the Pakistanimilitary establishment believes it better to agree to an FMCT now since Indiahas a much greater long-term fissile material growth potential than Pakistan.In either case, the argument that the FMCT is a global disarmament imperativeseems to have no currency in Islamabad; Pakistan’s position, as describedby Pakistani counterparts, is shaped exclusively by its own regionalconcerns.

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FMCT Policy Circle

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¶8. (C) While GOP officials would not comment directly on internal FMCTpolicy deliberations over the summer, Maria Sultan argued that Pakistan’ssurprising reversal at the CD can be chalked up to two factors: a CDAmbassador too eager to join consensus and a lethargic policy process drivenmore by personalities than institutions. By her account, Pakistan’s initialsupport of the CD work program in the spring of 2009 was a decision made byAmbassador Zamir Akram without the benefit of a full policy review inIslamabad. Akram, she suggested, is part of the old guard of MFA ideologues

and a long-time supporter of the Shannon mandate, which identified parametersfor international consensus on an FMCT. However, Pakistan’s position tosupport FMCT negotiations based on the Shannon mandate was outdated, shesaid. The advent of the U.S.-India civil nuclear initiative, in particular,had changed the terms for Islamabad, but its CD strategy had never beenupdated. Military officials in Islamabad intervened, she stated, and it wasleft to MFA to extricate Pakistan from a dilemma of its own creation, whichis why Pakistan sought to tie up the CD on procedural grounds.

¶9. (C) According to Sultan, there are several camps within the GOP policycircle on FMCT. MFA officials, she said, tend toward continuing to supportnegotiation of an FMCT. In addition to Foreign Secretary Bashir and IrfanShami, other officials, such as MFA spokesman Abdul Basit and Ambassador toBeijing Masood Khan, are Akram protgs and will continue to be consulted onnegotiating strategy even though they are not directly tied to theDisarmament Division, she suggested. While important, MFA officials probablyare not the most influential voices on FMCT, she argued; the views of high-level military officials, in particular Gen. Kayani and SPD Director GeneralKhalid Kidwai, carry more weight within this circle. Kayani, she indicated,is aware of the issue but is not prepared to make a decision. Kidwai, on theother hand, favors delaying negotiations as long as possible, presumably toleave time and space for the investments made in expanding Pakistan’sfissile material production capacity to bear fruit. SPD Arms Control DirectorKhalid Banuri indicated this preference for delay, telling PolOff that the

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current momentum on FMCT should not be used to rush the process and “thereneeds to be plenty of time for deliberations.⠀

¶10. (C) Sultan argued, however, that Kidwai does not monopolize the debateon this issue and that other critical inputs come from the Strategic ForcesCommand, the Director General for Military Operations (DGMO), the Minister ofDefense, and some National Defense University experts. In particular, shestated, “the DGMO (Maj. Gen. Javed Iqbal) takes a view on the FMCT 180degrees apart from Kidwaiâ €™s,†believing that it is better to bind Indiato current fissile material levels than wait for the full effect of the U.S.-India nuclear initiative, which will allow India to produce even greateramounts of plutonium.

¶11. (C) When asked how she rated overall government support for these two

positions, Sultan assessed 70% favor further delay while 30% supportnegotiation. However, she cautioned, overt U.S. pressure on Pakistan willfirmly tip the balance toward delay. To bring Pakistan on board, she said theU.S. needs to focus on addressing Pakistan’s strategic concerns and theslow degradation of deterrence. In particular, she argued for opening thehigh-technology defense market for Pakistan on early warning capabilities,such as the AWACS platform.

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Next Steps and Post’s Recommendations

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¶12. (C) Looking ahead to January, MFA Disarmament Director General IrfanShami expressed a strong desire to resume bilateral talks onnonproliferation, security, and strategic stability before the CD session inorder to discuss perspectives on the FMCT and come to an “understanding⠀on each other’s positions. He would not elaborate on what that“understanding⠀ might constitute, but stated Pakistan needs time toexplain its position. While it is unlikely such discussions will turnPakistan’s policy around, they should have the effect of forcing moreinternal discussions on the issue, which provides some opportunity for USGinfluence.

¶13. (C) It seems clear that, beyond MFA, Pakistan’s militaryleadership is a crucial audience. While direct U.S. pressure isunlikely to convince them to support FMCT negotiations, and may evenhurt efforts to move forward, mil-mil discussions on Pakistan’sstrategic concerns, particularly with COAS General Kayani and DGMOMajor General Javed Iqbal, could help build the military’sconfidence that Pakistan’s interests will be taken into account. Aspart of these interventions, it may help to provide Pakistani militaryleaders with an analytical case for why an FMCT makes more sense forPakistan now than in the future in terms of the strength of the itsdeterrence vis-a-vis India.