PAKISTANI TO PRESS FOR RADAR AIRCRAFT

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000100430004-3
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: December 20, 2011
• Sequence Number: 4
• Publication Date: April 29, 1987
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/20: CIA-RDP90-00965R000100430004-3TAT
ARTICLE A 0
ON P
WASHINGTON TIMES
29 April 1987
Pakistani to press
for radar aircraft
T By Richard Beeston
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Pakistani Foreign Minister Yaqub
Khan Sahabzada is coming to Wash-
ington next month to press for U.S.
radar aircraft that would provide
early warning against escalating air
attacks on his country from
neighboring Afghanistan.
An urgent Pakistani request to
lease such planes was discussed yes-
terday by Michael Armacost, the
State Department's under secretary
for political affairs, and Pakistani
Ambassador Jamsheed Marker.
India, meanwhile, announced that
it, too, is sending its foreign minister,
Narain Dutt Tiwari, to Washington to
seek a suspension of all U.S. military
aid to Pakistan to force a halt in its
nuclear program.
India's Defense Minister Krishna
Pant declared on Monday that the
government is debating whether to
build a nuclear bomb to meet the
threat of an "Islamic bomb" from
Pakistan.
A State Department spokesman
said yesterday the United States had
agreed in principle to facilitate Paki-
stan's acquisition of an airborne
early warning system.
The spokesman said that discus-
sions had included the possibility of
leasing arrangements but that no de-
cisions had yet been made on any.
particular system or on the methods
of transfer.
It was not clear whether the dis-
cussion on leasing radar planes in-
volved Boeing's super-sophisticated
AWACS - Airborne Warning and
Control System - or other early
warning aircraft.
Whether AWACS, which would
cost about $900 million if pur
chased outright, or an alternative
less expensive system is provided,
its early deployment would require
the participation of U.S. Air For-
cepersonnel. But the surveillance
aircraft would be flown far back
from the Afghan borders and pro-
tected by Pakistan Air Force
fighters.
Pakistani officials confirmed that
Prime Minister Mohammed Khan
Junejo wrote to President Reagan
kin for the early leasing of Amer-
ican aerial surveillance planes.
A leasing arrangement was
clearly Pakistan's second choice. It
has long wanted to purchase such
planes but cannot, at present, afford
them. Also, leasing would not be as
time-consuming, given the urgency
of Pakistan's request in the face of
escalating air raids by Soviet and
Afghan planes.
But leasing the system could
cause problems in Congress be-
cause of present regulations which
would require the administration to
certify that the United States has
more AWACS planes than it needs.
The air attacks on border villages
in Pakistan was one of the issues
discussed at the State Department
yesterday. Islamabad has ac-
knowledged that it cannot protect it-
self from such attacks because it
lacks an early warning system.
So far this year Pakistan has suf-
fered over 1,000 casualties.
This, together with an increase in
terrorist bombings by infiltrators
from Afghanistan designed to de-
stabilize Pakistan is heightening op-
position to the government of Pres-
ident Mohammed Zia ul-Haq.
Last week a move in the Senate
Foreign Relations Committee to pe-
nalize Pakistan for its nuclear pro-
gram by withholding $100 million of
U.S. military aid was narrowly de-
feated.
The vote followed an appeal from
Mr. Armacost, who called on sen-
ators not to cut back aid at a time
when Pakistan was taking "a whale
of a battering" from Soviet-backed.
Afghan forces.
Yesterday there were reports
from New Delhi that the nuclear
policy review was being generally
welcomed by a growing bomb lobby.
Pramod Mahajan, member of Par-
liament for the right-wing Bharatiya
Janata [Indian People's] Party said
he welcomed the review an-
nouncement by Defense Minister
Pant "half-heartedly ... half-hearted
because the government doesn't -
seem to have made up its mind fully ?
yet."
Mr. Mahajan said India should go
for a nuclear bomb "even if Pakistan
does not possess one:'
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/20: CIA-RDP90-00965R000100430004-3