Washington, December 21

The US acceded to Pakistan’s demand to overlook its secretive nuclear weapons programme following the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in the late 1970s after Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping convinced Washington to support Islamabad for the “stability” in South Asia, according to latest declassified State Department documents.

The documents reveal that the then Pakistani dictator Gen Zia-ul Haq and Chinese Vice Premier Deng Xiaoping were successful in extracting this price from the US in lieu of Islamabad’s support to America against the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

Deng also convinced the US to start giving more military and financial aid to Pakistan, according to the US Foreign Relations 1977-1980 volume on Afghanistan.

The voluminous document indicates that both Zia and Deng successfully convinced the then Jimmy Carter administration that India under Prime Minister Indira Gandhi would be pro-Soviet.

“There are limits on our ability to aid Pakistan because of their nuclear explosive programme. Although we still object to their doing so, we will now set that aside for the time being, to facilitate strengthening Pakistan against potential Soviet action,” the then US Defence Secretary Harold Brown said in a January 8, 1980, meeting with Deng.

“Pakistan has its own arguments, i.e., India has exploded a nuclear device but the world has not seemed to complain about this. So now you have decided to put this aside and solve the question of military and economic aid to Pakistan. We applaud this decision,” said Deng, who later emerged as China’s top leader.

He also convinced the US to not equate India and Pakistan when it comes to giving aid. “Regarding India, we have always felt that the United States should try to cultivate good relations, and this has had a good effect. But India is not a stabilising factor. Perhaps you already know the general election results,” he said. He was referring to the then just-concluded parliamentary elections in which Indira Gandhi came back to power with a majority. Observing that Gandhi had got 70 per cent of the vote, Deng said it was very difficult to judge how India will go. — PTI