ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — The Pakistani government began imposing sweeping measures Friday to hold together its economy in the face of potentially withering sanctions as it fired off new warnings to India that ended any chance for an immediate rapprochement between the two rivals.
The state of emergency, declared after Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's announcement that Pakistan had tested five nuclear devices Thursday, provoked fears that the Sharif government might overstep its authority and crush Pakistan's fragile democratic guarantees.
Coupled with the storm of criticism showered on Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee's government in New Delhi since India detonated five atomic devices earlier this month, Sharif's actions illustrated how the South Asian diplomatic crisis has begun to affect the internal politics of India and Pakistan.
Pakistani President Mohammed Rafiq Tarar said he issued the emergency decree to protect the nation from a possible attack by India.
"We have nuclear weapons. We are a nuclear power," Foreign Minister Gohar Ayub Khan said. "Our retaliation would be taken swiftly, with vengeance and devastating effect."
Khan refused to rule out more nuclear tests, even as U.S. intelligence sources reported that Pakistan was preparing a second site about 60 miles from the Chagai Hills site where the first explosions took place.
Pakistan claims that India was preparing to launch a strike against Pakistani nuclear facilities.
Indian officials dismissed the allegations, but they have made numerous threats in recent weeks over the disputed territory of Kashmir, the cause of two of the three wars between India and Pakistan.
Pakistan's bellicose talk was met Friday by conciliatory gestures from Vajpayee, who has faced allegations that his decision to test nuclear weapons fueled the arms race on the impoverished subcontinent.
Vajpayee told the upper house of the Indian Parliament, the Rajya Sabha, that Pakistan faces no threat from India. He repeated his offer to conclude a "no-first-use" treaty on nuclear weapons with the Islamic republic.
"We do not want ill of Pakistan. I want to remove doubts that we want to destroy Pakistan," Vajpayee said.
The exchange came as Pakistanis braced themselves for the economic sanctions announced by the U.S. and Japan--even as they celebrated their country's entry into the club of nuclear-armed states.
