Word: zia
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CENTO was conceived as a mutual security pact, but at least two of its members, Iran and Pakistan, are undergoing paroxysms of mutual insecurity. Hence the decision of Pakistan's chief martial law administrator, General Mohammed Zia ul-Haq, to visit Tehran for consultations with the Shah last weekend. "It promises to be a most melancholy conversation," commented an official of the Iranian imperial court...
...Rawalpindi last week, General Zia told TIME: "I have a feeling that the U.S. has given up its claims and interests in this region." As for CENTO, he called it "a treaty on paper with no significance whatsoever?no teeth, no backing." Among other CENTO leaders there is mounting impatience with the vagaries of U.S. public opinion as reflected in such congressional actions as the Turkish arms embargo and aid cuts for countries that try to acquire a nuclear capability. They also regard Carter Administration policies as quixotic and punitive. Pakistan, for example, is furious over Washington's jawboning nuclear...
...subject of Turkey comes up continually in Tehran and Islamabad. "Turkey is entering much more into talks with the Soviet Union than it has in the past," says Zia. "This is understandable because they've found that their so-called traditional allies have let them down...
Western observers discount the possibility that the charges against Bhutto, once a national hero, are part of a smear campaign by his opponents. Rumors of official misconduct had circulated widely in Pakistan while Bhutto was in office. Moreover, there is little reason to believe that General Zia, who was named army chief of staff by Bhutto a year ago, has any grudge against his former boss. The diffident general, who now calls Bhutto "an evil genius" and "a 1977 Machiavelli," seems determined to remain impartial and let the law take its course. Before his arrest, Bhutto predicted "a crisis...
Will the military government proceed with its plan to hold national elections on Oct. 18? "By jingo, yes," declares Zia, "unless the heavens fall." Despite Bhutto's incarceration, his Pakistan People's Party announced last week that it would contest the elections; it called on party members to turn their grief "over the arrest of Party Chairman Bhutto into an enthusiastic campaign." The army still talks as if it expects to go back to the barracks by the end of October. But if the election results are inconclusive, the soldiers may yet decide to delay their departure...