Pakistan was yesterday at the centre of international nuclear concerns as it asserted it would set off a test device in response to India's five nuclear tests.
The alarm was raised after the German Chancellor, Dr Helmut Kohl, said at the Group of Eight (G8) summit in Birmingham that he had "reliable information" that Pakistan had conducted a test. Islamabad denied it had already conducted a test, but said it was only a matter of time until it did.
The US administration said it had "no information" suggesting Pakistan had gone ahead with a nuclear test, and a spokesman for President Clinton at the G8 summit said: "We don't believe that they have made a decision."
On Friday the G8 leaders condemned India's nuclear tests but failed to take any collective action against New Delhi.
The Pakistani Foreign Minister, Mr Gohar Ayub Khan, said yesterday the cabinet had approved a test and its scientists were ready. "There are certain organisations which are already in the process. They have undergone the consultations and decisions are there," he added. Asked if the Pakistani test would be in the next few days, he said: "I cannot give timings on that."
The statement came after unsuccessful talks between Pakistan and a high-powered US mission sent by Mr Clinton to dissuade Islamabad from exploding a device.
The foreign minister noted that the G8 countries were not unanimous in their view of the tests. "France, Russia and Britain are not supporting the sanctions and other countries also in due course will fall out," he said.
Meanwhile, President Clinton said India's nuclear tests could give a new impetus to US and Russian efforts to cut their nuclear arsenals.
"I think all of us, because of the Indian nuclear tests, feel an even greater sense of urgency to change the debate . . . over nuclear issues toward less, not more," he said after a 45-minute meeting with President Yeltsin on the fringes of the Birmingham summit.
Mr Clinton said Mr Yeltsin had again assured him he would push Russia's Duma (the lower house of parliament) to ratify the START-2 arms control pact, which would pave the way for the two countries to immediately begin talks on a START-3 accord for further cuts.
"I think START-3 could be done in fairly short order," Mr Clinton said, adding he and Mr Yeltsin had a clear sense of each other's views on how to make further nuclear warhead cuts.
"We'd like to really get after it and turn . . . the nuclear tide back in the right direction - away from more weapons and toward fewer ones," he added.
Mr Yeltsin said he expected Mr Clinton in Moscow in July. His spokesman, Mr Sergei Yastrzhembsky, later said the meeting would go ahead only if START-2, signed as far back as 1993, had been ratified by the Duma. START-2 would reduce US and Russian arsenals to 3,500 deployed warheads per side compared to a target of 6,000 under the first START accord now in force.
Mr Clinton also said that he and Mr Yeltsin discussed the thorny issue of Russia's supply of missile technology to Iran, saying their talks on the matter may soon "bear fruit".