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Canada
eyes arms sale to Pakistan
ISLAMABAD (Agencies) - Defence Minister Peter MacKay
says Canada is considering ending its 11-year embargo on the sale of
military technology to nuclear-armed Pakistan, reports TheStar.com.
The development comes as Pakistan’s army prepares to take its fight
against Taliban militants into the tribal region bordering
Afghanistan. In a telephone interview from Islamabad, MacKay, who
this week called Pakistan the “most dangerous country in the world,”
said he’s impressed with Pakistan’s resolve in taking on the
Taliban.
“Doing military business in the future, and trade in particular, is
something that is under consideration,” MacKay said after meeting
with President Asif Zardari.
However, he added, “We’re not there yet.”
Canada cut off military supplies to Pakistan in 1998 after it
conducted a nuclear weapons test in response to one carried out by
neighbouring India.
Concern over Pakistan’s illegal and surreptitious move into the
nuclear arms club was underlined by news that one of its leading
physicists had sold nuclear secrets in the 1990s to such countries
as North Korea and Libya.
That contributed to the continuation of Canada’s military embargo
and prompted similar actions from other Western countries.
MacKay says Pakistan is doing its best to eradicate the Taliban.
“They are certainly a government that’s taking control of this
situation,” MacKay told the Star. “Quite frankly, this is what the
international community, including Canada, had been asking them to
do all along.”
The Nation : May 21, 2009
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