Posted on 01/26/2003 4:08:24 AM PST by knighthawk
WASHINGTON: The US Senate has approved a long delayed $305 million aid package for Pakistan, including a controversial provision of $50 million for purchase of military equipment.
The proposal includes $200 million for debt relief, $50 million each for military purchases and social sector development, $4 million for an anti-narcotics campaign and $1 million for financing Pakistani officers' military training in the US under the International Military Training and Education programme.
Official sources here say the debt relief of $200 million would, in actual terms, benefit Pakistan to the extent of about a billion dollars.
The $1 billion takes into account the interest that US loans to Pakistan, now to be written off, would have earned over the 30-year-payment period.
Pakistani diplomats explain that the provision for military purchases would be used in procuring from the US equipment required by its forces for operations in support of American troops in suspected terrorist-infested areas bordering Afghanistan.
Around 70,000 Pakistani troops are engaged in flushing out the remnants of al-Qaeda and the Taliban, they say.
The $1-million IMET funding would ensure Pakistan's return to the prestigious military training programme denied since 1990. The then president George Bush had invoked the Pressler Amendment, banning US military and economic aid to Pakistan in protest against its nuclear weapons programme.
The Clinton administration did allow some concessions to Pakistan under the Brownback Amendment in 2001 but its 1998 nuclear tests and October 1999 military coup attracted another set of US sanctions, scrapping military sales and economic assistance.
Pakistani diplomats say the exclusion of Pakistan from IMET had hurt US interests more. It denied Washington the opportunity to maintain close contact with the new generation of Pakistani army officers and inculcate in them an American civil and military value system.
Indications are that President George W. Bush would sign the bill into a law.
He had agreed to the debt relief during his meeting with Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf in February last year.
However, the then Democratic chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Joseph Biden, had insisted on conditioning US assistance to the full restoration of democracy in Pakistan and an end to cross-border infiltration along the Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmir.
The final language of the proposal, approved by the now Republican-controlled Senate, is still not known.
Pakistani Foreign Minister Khurshid Mahmood Kasuri is here for discussions with his US counterpart Colin Powell and Congressional leaders.
Pakistan sends supplies to Taliban - Washington Times - Bill Gertz
Pakistan government arming Taliban at night
Terrorist Sanctuary: Pakistan Provides Cover - National Review - January 8, 2003
Pakistan A Terrorist Haven: US State Department
US State Dept identifies Pakistan and Afghanistan as a major hub of international terrorism
Signs point to Pakistan as terrorism base
India: Pakistan Is Terrorist State
Terrorist Sponsors: Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, China
Osama recruits from British mosques, funds their terrorist training in Pakistan/Afghanistan camps
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