PAKISTAN CONDUCTS SEVERAL NUCLEAR TESTS U.S. ORDERS SANCTIONS TO CHASTISE PAKISTAN.

Byline: John F. Burns The New York Times

Pakistan responded to India's nuclear tests with underground nuclear tests of its own Thursday. Within hours, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif declared his country a ``nuclear power,'' fulfilling a secret plan made by a predecessor nearly 30 years ago that Pakistan would build an ``Islamic bomb.''

In announcing that it had conducted five underground nuclear tests, Pakistan's first, the Islamabad government simultaneously said that it was already fitting nuclear warheads on a missile said to be capable of striking targets across most of north and central India.

The news set off pandemonium in the Indian Parliament, which had been acrimoniously debating India's own recent nuclear tests. The announcement raised the specter of retaliation by India, Pakistan's archrival, which said after its own tests two weeks ago that it would begin fitting nuclear warheads on a range of missiles, including several developed specifically for targets in Pakistan.

``Today, we have settled the score with India,'' Sharif announced in a solemn television address about three hours after the tests, which were carried out at 3:30 p.m. Thursday at a testing range in the Chagai Hills, a desert region in the remote southwest of Pakistan, close to the borders with Afghanistan and Iran. As he spoke, Pakistanis poured into the streets to dance and fire guns in the air, and crowds jammed mosques to offer prayers of gratitude.

Early today, Sharif's government declared a national state of emergency, further heightening the sense of crisis that has gripped the subcontinent since the first Indian nuclear tests May 11. The statement was issued shortly after midnight by Pakistan's titular president, Mohammed Rafiq Tarar, acting under constitutional provisions that may be invoked when Pakistan's security falls ``under threat of external aggression.''

It was not clear whether Sharif intended to go further, by curbing civil rights, suspending Parliament or taking other measures that Pakistan has frequently resorted to in its 50 years as a nation. Officials in Pakistan said privately that they did not anticipate such moves, but noted that Sharif would need emergency powers to respond quickly if India reacts to the Pakistan tests by actions that push the two countries closer to a military confrontation.

Tremors from Pakistan's tests registered at seismic centers as far away as Australia, Sweden and the United States, although U.S. intelligence officials said Pakistan probably tested only two weapons rather than the five announced.

Pakistan described its tests as ``a complete success,'' but offered no details about the types of weapons involved, or their explosive power. But a separate government statement said that Pakistan's Ghauri missile, test-fired on April 6, was ``already being capped with nuclear warheads to give a befitting reply to any misadventure by the enemy,'' meaning India.

Some Indian officials have said that it was the Ghauri test that precipitated the tests by India's Hindu nationalist government.

President Clinton, who had made the last of five telephone calls appealing for restraint from Sharif only hours before the tests, quickly announced that the United States would impose the same package of economic sanctions on Pakistan that it applied to India after its nuclear tests, including a suspension of U.S. economic aid, a ban on U.S. bank loans to government institutions and pressure for a cutoff of assistance from the International Monetary Fund and World Bank, which have propped up Pakistan's debt-laden, enfeebled economy for years.

``I cannot believe that we are about to start the 21st century by having the Indian subcontinent repeat the worst mistakes of the 20th century, when we know it is not necessary to peace, to security, to prosperity, to national greatness, or to personal fulfillment,'' Clinton said.

When the first shouted word of Pakistan's tests was heard in the Indian Parliament, a Communist leader, Somnath Chatterjee, interrupted a speech condemning India's tests and addressed himself directly to Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, the Hindu nationalist leader who approved the Indian tests. ``You have started a nuclear arms race in this region,'' he said.

Vajpayee left the chamber immediately to check with Indian officials, returning quickly to make a statement. ``If this is true, then India's policy has been vindicated,'' he said. Later, Vajpayee rejected suggestions that India had set off a nuclear spiral, saying it had acted only because of concern about Pakistan's covert nuclear program. ``In fact, Pakistan forced us to take the path of nuclear deterrence,'' he said. He did not rule out retaliation.

``India is ready to meet any challenge,'' he said. Asked if India might set aside the moratorium on nuclear testing it declared after its own tests, Vajpayee replied, ``A new situation has been created and it will be taken into account in formulating our policy.''

The tests set off widespread alarm around the world, with statements of condemnation from Russia, China, Japan, Britain and a score of other nations, some of which, including Australia, Germany and Sweden, announced economic sanctions of their own against Pakistan. Many economists predicted that the sanctions, especially if they include a cutoff in emergency loans from the International Monetary Fund that have repeatedly staved off bankruptcy for Pakistan, could be a body-blow to an economy that has staggered from crisis to crisis for decades.

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Photo, map

PHOTO Pakistanis celebrate the nation's underground nuclear tests Thursday.

M. Mazhar/Associated Press

Map: Pakistan