PRIME MINISTER
TRANSCRIPT OF DOORSTOP, KARACHI AIRPORT 9 FEBRUARY 1989
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JOURNALIST: There are reports today in the Pakistani press
that R3Jiv Gandhi is very concerned over the recent
successful missile testing and highly unlikely to be drawn to:
signing any non-proliferation treaty.
PM4: I suppose you can understand that. if one side is
Wprepared to make a parti. cular advance the other is going to
be concerned but I tnink the lesson of history is that the
interests of neither side in 311y potential conflict are
advanced if they just keep building up the capacity for
destruction of the other. That certainly I think been
understood at the level of the superpowers. I hope it wl
be understood regionally.
JOURNALIST: Would you be putting that argument to Mr Gandhi?
PM: As I have said before, I don't in advance indicate what
I will be saying to people with whom an going to speak.
But I think it's fairly obvious that there is a compelling
logic in that which has recommended itself to the
superpowers. * As I have said, Australia without seeking to
intrude itself into the affairs of this region is entitled on
its record to say that it has a real interest and a
commitment and a capacity to contribute to the causes of
O disarmament. So we will be talking frankly with the Prime
Minister of India as I indeed did with the Prime Minister of
Pak istan.
JOURNALIST: How potentially dangerous is this sort oft
stand-off between India and Pakistan?
PM: I think the greatest disaster, actual as well as
potential, is that it is a diversion of resources. I think
that good sense will prevail between these nations and with
the friends of these nations to stop any actual conflict.
But the real on-going not a potential the real on-going
-disaster is that in two countries which have such demand u-pon
governments to provide services for their people who are in
need, so much is diverted into the defence area and the
capacity for destruction. That's not a potential, as I say,
but an actual disaster.
JOURNALIST: Given that last argument about the diversion of
resources, would the Australian governmenttever consider
making aid conditional on some sort of nuclear monitoring as
the US Congress has done to Pakistan?
PM: think we are in a different position to the United
States in that respect but I don't think at this stage we're
looking at conditionality.
ends
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