China to help Pakistan build two nuclear plants

PAKISTAN: Pakistan said China will help build two more nuclear power plants in the energy-starved Muslim nation, tightening its bonds with Beijing as rising militant violence strains its anti-terror alliance with the United States.

The nuclear agreement was among a dozen economic cooperation accords signed during President Asif Ali Zardari's recent visit to Beijing, Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi said Saturday.

Pakistan’s President Asif Ali Zardari, shakes hands with Jia Qinglin, the fourth-most-powerful person in the Communist Party, prior to their meeting in Beijing . Pakistan’s president met with China’s premier on Thursday, a day after clinching agreements aimed at boosting Chinese involvement in his country’s ailing economy. AP

While Qureshi gave few details, enhanced cooperation with China will likely help offset Pakistan's resentment of a recent deal allowing U.S. businesses to sell nuclear fuel, technology and reactors to neighboring archrival India.

U.S. officials including Assistant Secretary of State Richard Boucher, who held talks in Islamabad on Saturday, have rejected Pakistani calls for equal treatment - usually with reference to Pakistan's past history of leaking sensitive nuclear secrets.

Chinese leaders "do recognize Pakistan's need, and China is one country that at international forums has clearly spoken against the discriminatory nature" of the U.S.-India pact, Qureshi said at a news conference.

China, a major investor and arms supplier for Pakistan, shares Islamabad's fierce regional rivalry with India. China already has helped Pakistan build a nuclear power plant at Chashma, about 125 miles (200 kilometers) southwest of the capital, Islamabad. Work on a second nuclear plant is in progress and is expected to be completed in 2011.

International sanctions were slapped on Pakistan after it detonated its first nuclear charges in 1998 in response to similar tests by India.

The sanctions were eased after Musharraf agreed to help Washington hunt down al-Qaida terrorists responsible for the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.

But the revelation in 2004 that the architect of Islamabad's nuclear program, Abdul Qadeer Khan, had passed nuclear secrets to Iran, Libya and North Korea set back Pakistan's hopes of becoming a trusted member of the world's exclusive nuclear club.

Boucher told reporters last week that the pact with India was "unique" and that a similar agreement with Pakistan was "just not on the table."

He said Washington would help Pakistan develop its huge coal reserves, expand hydroelectric power generation and build wind farms on its Arabian Sea coast.

Islamabad, Sunday, AP