Critical Triangle continues ....

However, almost immediately the sanctions started getting diluted. In July 1998, less than two months after the tests, agricultural credits were exempted from sanctions largely due to the economic impact it would have on US farmers. Similarly, since Pakistan was far more vulnerable to economic collapse, the US announced it would no longer oppose IMF assistance.

At the same time, the senate voted to give the President executive authority to waive all sanctions. Simultaneously, Assistant Secretary of State, Strobe Talbott initiated seven rounds of discussion during the remainder of 1998 on nuclear issues alone with both India and Pakistan. However, by the next year Afghanistan came back to haunt the bilateral relationship.

The Taliban-Pakistan relationship, which Pakistan continued to deny, now became an active problem because of the “Arab-Afghans,” a group of Arab Salafist fundamentalists who were using the power vacuum in Afghanistan to launch global attacks under the aegis of al Qaeda, most prominent among whom was Osama Bin Laden. Operating from Afghanistan, the organisation had already carried out several damaging and high profile attacks against US interests including the bombing of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.

On 21 August 1998, the US launched a massive cruise missile strike on al Qaeda camps in Afghanistan with most of these missiles flying over Pakistani territory, drawing sharp criticism across the Pakistani political spectrum. The issue at hand, which would be amplified later with drone strikes, was “violation of sovereignty” of
which this attack marked the first precedent.

Embarrassingly for Pakistan though was the fact that these strikes killed 11 Pakistani militants in these camps linked to the Harkat ul-Ansar operating in Kashmir.

To be continued....