308. Telegram From the Embassy in France to the Department of State1
34818. Subject: Pakistan Ambassador to France Hardlines on Reprocessing Plant.
1. Pakistani Ambassador Iqbal Ahmed Akhund (please protect source) told me the other day that Pakistan has every intention of finishing the reprocessing plant on its own. He said it would take longer than if France helped, but the GOP was determined to go ahead. He asserted that Pakistani completion of the plant was not contrary to US law (i.e. that the Glenn Amendment applies only to transfers of equipment, materials, or technology between countries). He continued [Page 721] that the US was mesmerized by the non-proliferation issue and was not taking a balanced view of things. He virtually admitted the purpose of the plant was military—to give the Pakistani people, Indians, and others a perception of a Pakistani military capability. But he also vigorously justified the program on other grounds and insisted Pakistan understands non-proliferation. In the Pakistani view, he said, the Indian and Afghan situations mandated the need for a nuclear weapons capability. This did not mean that Pakistan would explode a device; it meant simply that Pakistan should have the capability to do so.
2. In response to all this, I argued that the best way to assure Pakistan’s security was to make sure it had friends. I said that for Pakistan to go ahead with the plant would make it extremely difficult for the US to maintain the kind of bilateral relationship that the Paks would want for their own security. I repeated what we have told them in Washington, New York, and Islamabad about not taking the letter of the Glenn Amendment as an assurance that aid could continue if Pakistan completed the plant.
- Source: National Archives, RG 59, Central Foreign Policy File, D780434–0619. Confidential; Exdis. Sent for information to Islamabad, New Delhi, Tehran, and Kabul. In an October 23 memorandum to Brzezinski, Thornton reported the information contained in the telegram. (Carter Library, National Security Affairs, Staff Material, North/South, Thornton Subject File, Box 100, Evening Reports: 8–10/78)↩