Word: zia
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Pakistani capital, the U.S. team talked with Military Strongman Mohammed Zia ul-Haq about how to protect Pakistan from the Soviet threat along its 1,400-mile border with Afghanistan. Brzezinski and Christopher reassured Zia that the U.S. intended to come to Pakistan's aid in the event of a Soviet invasion. Though they failed to agree on an aid package, the Pakistani general seemed very interested in a pledge of defense. At the outset, Zia asked for a treaty with the U.S. that would protect Pakistan from all of its neighbors. Such a pact could conceivably oblige...
...played chess and kibitzed with reporters during the 19-hour flight to Islamabad, argued that Pakistan will be expected to defend itself against border skirmishes and limited incursions; the U.S. would intervene only if the country's security was threatened. Calling the talks "encouraging, fruitful and educational," Zia said that the American show of support "has brought new life to the 1959 agreement." Brzezinski and Christopher left behind a 15-man military group, headed by Assistant Secretary of Defense David McGiffert, to study Pakistan's defenses in the north and northwest and assess its arms needs...
...Despite Zia's drawbacks as a leader. Carter Administration policymakers have concluded that Pakistan must be strengthened in order to discourage the possibility of a Soviet thrust from Afghanistan through the Khyber Pass. Zia has an exalted sense of how much strengthening is needed. When he heard last month that Carter was thinking of providing $400 million in military aid, he petulantly rejected the offer as "peanuts." Just how much Zia thinks he deserves is not yet known, but State Department officials have hinted at a Western aid pack, age of $1.5 billion, including the originally specified $400 million...
Selig Harrison, a Southwest Asia expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, argues that the U.S. should encourage the Zia regime to try to placate these minority groups-for instance, by granting a measure of autonomy to the Baluchs of southwestern Pakistan. During a 1973-77 rebellion, Harrison recalls, the Pakistan air force used Iranian-supplied U.S. helicopters to raze Baluch villages indiscriminately, thereby unleashing "a legacy of hatred that has merely intensified separatist feelings." Recently, however, some Baluch leaders have told U.S. diplomats that they are worried about the Soviet presence in Afghanistan, and would settle for regional...
...supplies 60% of the West's oil. A Soviet attack on Pakistan would be something else; it would, and should, be costly, from Moscow's point of view, but would not necessarily lead to American or British intervention. Thus Washington's present intention is to help Zia ward off Soviet border forays rather than arm Pakistan against a Soviet invasion-an eventuality that Western strategists do not think likely...