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Britain denies cabinet row over Pakistan arms

LONDON: British officials denied on Wednesday that senior ministers were at loggerheads over arms sales to Pakistan following last October's military coup and said exports were continuing.

The Guardian newspaper said leaked cabinet papers showed Defence Minister Geoff Hoon and Trade Minister Stephen Byers had pushed for 80 export applications to Pakistan to be processed so British firms did not lose out to European competitors.

But it said Foreign Secretary Robin Cook and International Development Secretary Clare Short were strongly opposed to a swift resumption of arms exports to Islamabad.

It said the disagreement had triggered one of the biggest internal disputes in Prime Minister Tony Blair's two-and-a-half-year-old government.

Asked if there had been a ministerial row over arms sales to Pakistan, Blair's spokesman said: "No."

A Foreign Office spokeswoman also denied any government rift. "Policy in Whitehall is fairly coherent," she said.

Blair's spokesman said tighter controls on arms sales had already been imposed in 1998 after Pakistan tested a nuclear device but no embargo was imposed after General Pervez Musharraf overthrew prime minister Nawaz Sharif in October, he said.

"There isn't a freeze on arms exports to Pakistan. There weren't any plans to introduce a general embargo so applications that come in are treated in the same way," he said.

He added that he was not aware of any pressure from the Foreign Office to tighten existing restrictions on sales to Pakistan.

Officials say that while no new contracts have been signed with Pakistan since the military coup, outstanding contracts are being fulfilled as long as they meet guidelines established after the 1998 nuclear test.

"We look at any application for a licence very rigorously," the Foreign Office spokeswoman said.

The Guardian report came one day before Britain's Chief of Defence Staff, Sir Charles Guthrie, was due to arrive in Pakistan on a sensitive mission aimed at driving home Britain's call for Musharraf to restore democracy.

Britain has said Guthrie's visit is not a signal of "business as usual" with Pakistan.-Reuters