Zia & Deng made US believe Indira would be pro-Soviet: Papers

WASHINGTON: The US acceded to Pakistan's demand to overlook its secretive nuclear weapons programme following the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in the late 70s 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 General 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.

In addition to the US turning a blind eye to Pakistan's nuclear weapons programme, 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.

The Chinese leader applauded the US decision as he was successfully able to convince the Carter administration on this issue. "That is a very good approach. Pakistan has its own reasons for developing a nuclear programme. We ourselves oppose the Pakistan effort on nuclear weapons because we believe it is meaningless to spend money on such a programme," he said.