New Delhi: Russian President Vladimir Putin repeatedly raised concerns over Pakistan’s nuclear programme with former US president George W. Bush, once describing Islamabad as a “junta with nuclear weapons”, according to newly released documents.
The documents, first published Tuesday by National Security Archive at The George Washington University, highlight Putin’s wariness with Islamabad’s nuclear programme as well as its proliferation network supporting Iran’s nuclear ambitions over two decades ago.
“I am concerned about Pakistan. It is just a junta with nuclear weapons. It is no democracy, yet the West makes no criticism of weapons. It should talk about it,” Putin told Bush in their first summit together at Brdo castle in Slovenia in June 2001.
At the time, Pakistan was ruled by General Pervez Musharraf, who had come to power in 1999 through a military coup.
Putin highlighted Pakistan in a conversation with Bush that revolved around other security issues, including the enlargement of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), the Iranian and North Korean nuclear programmes, and Afghanistan.
“I’m concerned by Iran. Weapons reaching that country could harm you, too. I can’t do much with them now,” Bush informed Putin.
The Russian President promised to restrict the flow of missile technologies with Tehran, while pointing out that the Iranian administration was keen to build a nuclear weapons system.
Another document released by the archive, of a conversation between Bush and Putin in 2005, underscores the Russian President’s concerns over the proliferation of nuclear technologies between Pakistan and Iran, to which the then US President highlights efforts against physicist A.Q. Khan.
Khan, long considered to be the “father” of the nuclear programme in Pakistan, created a vast network that aided the export of nuclear technology to Iran, North Korea and Libya.
“But it’s not clear what the (Iranian) labs have, where they are. (Iranian) cooperation with Pakistan still exists,” Putin told Bush during their meeting at the Oval Office in September 2005. The latter pointed out that he had been in touch with Musharraf on the issue.
“I told him we’re worried about transfers to Iran and North Korea. They put A.Q. Khan in jail; and some of his buddies under house arrest. We want to know what they said. I keep reminding Musharraf of that. Either he’s getting nothing or he’s not being forthcoming,” Bush said, according to the documents.
In January 2004, Khan was arrested by Pakistani authorities. Musharraf issued pardon to Khan shortly after his arrest in an attempt to control the controversy around his proliferation network.
In his brief exchange with Bush in 2005, Putin said he was “nervous” about the proliferation of uranium between Pakistan and Iran, pointing out that some of the material used in the Iranian centrifuges was of “Pakistani origin”.
The worry over Pakistan’s nuclear network mirrors India’s own concerns about Islamabad’s chequered history on nuclear proliferation.
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Changing US-Russia ties
The conversations between 2001 and 2005 indicate the widening agenda between the US and Russia as the two countries sought to find a relationship following the end of the Cold War. However, by 2008, there was a clear difference between Putin and Bush, especially on the enlargement of NATO.
Putin warned Bush in their last meeting in April 2008 in Russia’s Sochi that the inclusion of Ukraine into NATO would lead to a confrontation between the two countries. The Russian President also raised the spectre of Georgia joining the western military alliance as a means to solve its own internal issues over territorial disputes with Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
A few months after the last Putin-Bush meeting, Russia waged war against Georgia, backing separatists in South Ossetia and Abkhazia, further widening the gulf with the US.
In the newly released documents, the warmth of Putin and Bush’s early relationship is seen with the two discussing how the Russian President had a “miracle” with a cross blessed by his mother that was saved during a fire at his dacha–a second home or a country home.
The Russian President emerged as one of the strongest backers of the US in its war on terror following the 11 September, 2001, terrorist attacks that saw the destruction of the World Trade Centre in New York.
However, by the end of the decade, Russia and the US had seen their interests largely diverge, with Moscow eventually occupying Crimea in 2014, before moving closer to China, Iran and North Korea and starting a full-scale war with Ukraine in February 2022.
(Edited by Nida Fatima Siddiqui)
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