USA unlikely to intercept arms ships
From KHAGEN DE SARKAR New Delhi, June 25.—It is unlikely that the USA will acceded to the Indian demand for American interception of the Pakistani ships, now in the high seas, carrying US military hardware to Karachi.
The reasons, according to informed sources, are mainly two-fold: (1) practical difficulties arising out of legal considerations of contracts; and (2) difficulties from the viewpoint of a political consideration.
Officials of the Indian Foreign Ministry and the American Embassy here are currently engaged in detailed discussion regarding the items in the consignment and the nature of contracts between consignors and consigness. None of the sides here, it is learnt, knows the exact nature of the contracts between American suppliers and Pakistan.
Indian officials are inclined to hold that till the arms in the ships are physically delivered to Pakistan on Pakistani soil (such as Karachi Port), the title to the goods legally belongs to the USA. and he-e, the USA has every right to do any of the following:
(1) To ask the ships to rurn aside, temporarily: (2) to recall them to US ports; and (3) divert the arms to US depots elsewhere.
Indeed, these conditions were cited by a White House spokesman on September 7, 1965, in the wake of the Indo-Pak conflict and the consequent American decision to stop all arms supplies to Pakistan and India.
If the USA decides upon any of these actions and if the ships, owned by Pakistan, refuse to obey, the USA can order its Navy to chase them and get the specific order obeyed.
The sources here believe that none of this is going to happen. The question of American interception will figure only when the USA, as to matter of policy, decides to jeopardise relations with Pakistan. From the USA’s political point of view and her global startegy, such a decision is extremely unlikely today.
There is yet another legal opinion that as the ships belongs to Pakistan, an attack on them or threat of an attack will be an attack or that of an attack on Pakistan itself.
The USA, it is recalled, had threatened to intercept Soviet vessels carrying missiles to Cuba in 1962 and succeeded in turning them back. “But those were missiles”, a high American Embassy official was reported to have remarked here two days ago when this topic had been brought up before him by a journalist.
It is held in India official circles here that a difference of opinion between the US Department of State and the Pentagon persists over the arms shipment issue and that there is a sort of mix-up at the low levels of the US Administration.
The State Department yesterday declined to say whether it had been requested by the Government of India to intercept two ships reportedly carrying military equipment to Pakistan, add agencies.
The Press Officer. Mr. Bray, said in Washington the entire question was still under study by high officials of the State Department and the defence Department and there would be no statement until that review was completed.
He did announce that two commercial licences for the shipment for military equipment had been issued since March 25, the date the Government had set for the cut-off of all military aid to Pakistan.
Mr. Bray said the two licences, issued on March 21 and April 6, were approved because the decision to cut off aid on March 25 was not taken until several days after April 6.
Reference: Hindustan Standard 26.6.1971