Pakistan Reception Seen Cool | Desert Sun, Volume 42, Number 309, 31 July 1969

By PHIL NEWSOM 

UPI Foreign News Analayst 

In Pakistan, President Nixon is visiting the only major non Communist nation still retaining close ties with Red China, mostly because of a mutual animosity toward India. And, while the president is visiting Pakistan as a friend, he is bound to find a cool reception on a number of issues close to the United States. The first of these is that so far as Pakistan is concerned both CENTO, and SEATO, are dead. CENTO is the Central Treating Organization linking NATO in the west and SEATO, the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization, in the east. The Pakistan press, largely government - controlled, has been unanimous in its denunciation of Nixon’s proposals for ‘collective security.” Pakistan has turned down Soviet proposals for an Asian security plan which would unite South and Southeast Asian nations against Communist China and will not accept the same idea from the United States. A high-ranking Pakistani delegation recently visited Peking and Red Chinese Premier Chou En-lai has accepted an Invitation to visit Pakistan. Pakistan also has no intention of a reconciliation with India, at least until after the Kashmir issue is settled, in Pakistan’s favor. Kashmir has been a chief bone of contention between the two countries since their independence in 1947. The brief Paklstan-India war of 1965 was fought on the Kashmir issue. Whatever real warmth there is to Nixon’s reception will be due to his importance as a banker. In the last 15 years, the United States has extended to Pakistan $3.5 billion in economic and military aid. It still is Pakistan’s largest single source of foreign aid, and Pakistan wants more. The United States suspended aid to both India and Pakistan during the 1965 fighting. It since has resumed economic aid but has limited its military aid to "non-lethal” items. In 1967, Pakistan received $40 million and in 1968, $50 million. This year the government hopes for $l85 million and also hopes to break the U.S. embargo on weapons. Pakistan still is feeling the effects of the convulsion which led to the fall of President Ayub Khan last March and the rise to power of Gen. Yahya Khan, no relation. To still the unrest, the government promised workers wage increases and other reforms totalling more than $200 million. A great deal of the money must come from the outside. And, although the government has relaxed some of the curbs imposed by martial law, the country is still far from out of the woods. East Pakistan politicians still are demanding autonomy, and unless the government carries out its promises to the workers, industry, particularly in the west, could come to another standstill.