By BARBARA FERGUSON | ARAB NEWS

Published: Jul 23, 2010 22:44 Updated: Jul 23, 2010 22:44

WASHINGTON: The United States plans to vote against the sale of Chinese atomic reactor to Pakistan in the international export control group that monitors nuclear commerce, a senior State Department official told lawmakers Thursday.

Days after China evaded questions raised by Nuclear Supplier Group (NSG) members about its plan to sell Pakistan two additional reactors; the US asked Beijing for more information on the controversial deal.

The controversy could complicate Washington’s latest efforts to strengthen cooperation with Pakistan.

The announcement followed the visit of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who was in Islamabad for two days as part of a broader Asia trip aimed at strengthening US alliances in the war in Afghanistan.  She also raised the expected nuclear sale with Pakistani officials; a deal that US officials fear could undermine the Obama administration’s broader nonproliferation campaign.

Acting Assistant Secretary of State for International Security and Nonproliferation Vann Van Diepen told the House Foreign Affairs Committee: “By definition, we do not support any activity that goes against the [NSG] guidelines.”

The NSG seeks to limit the sale of member nations’ nuclear technology and materials to states that have signed the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty; nuclear-armed Pakistan has not, nor has India and Israel. All three of these states have nuclear weapons, although Israel has not declared its nuclear arsenal.

Any NSG member states seeking to sell nuclear technologies to these countries must get special waivers. In 2008, the Bush administration secured a waiver from the NSG to allow US companies to sell nuclear technologies to India.

“Based on the facts we are aware of, it would occur to us that this sale would not be allowed to occur without an exemption of the NSG,” Van Diepen said.

Beijing has maintained the sale should be permitted as it constructed two nuclear reactors at Chashma before becoming a member of the nuclear export control group.

China joined the Vienna-based NSG, in 2004, and has argued that the proposed sale by China National Nuclear Corp. of two 320-megawatt nuclear reactors to the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission would not violate its NSG commitments, as the deal was brokered before 2004. China has developed two civilian reactors in Pakistan under this initial deal, Chinese and Pakistani officials said.

But the US is challenging China’s use of the grandfather clause inside the NSG for the two new reactors. It says China would need a special waiver from the group’s 46 member states to go ahead with the multibillion-dollar sale. While Washington can vote ‘no’ on a waiver for China, it has no real recourse to block the deal from going forward as NSG guidelines are nonbinding, the nonproliferation official said.

Pakistan and China have a history of collaborating on nuclear technology.

US officials say they are concerned that if China sold the reactors to Pakistan without the NSG’s approval, it could further erode the ability of the international system to stanch the flow of nuclear technologies. They argue the system is already under stress due to alleged efforts by Iran, Syria and North Korea to clandestinely develop nuclear weapons.

Pakistani officials counter that the US is practicing a double standard by supporting the sale of nuclear technologies to India, but not Pakistan.  Islamabad has sought a nuclear trade deal with Washington similar to the agreement the Bush Administration struck with India in 2008. The US has stalled until now, citing the country’s record of nuclear proliferation through former chief nuclear weapons scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan.

But last October, Congress passed legislation authorizing $7.5 billion in development aid for the Pakistan over the next five years. US officials on Sunday said this aid has allowed Washington to show Pakistani people that the US was focused on helping the country and not just fighting Al-Qaeda and the Taleban.