Pakistan has dispatched a senior finance ministry official to Washington to seek emergency assistance from the international financial community to ward off the country's impending bankruptcy, according to U.S. and diplomatic sources.

This has created a major dilemma for the World Bank and an international consortium of Pakistan's creditors, the largest of which is the United States. Pakistan's total international debt is about $4 billion, and the country is rapidly running out of reserves to pay the interest on those debts.

But officials representing Pakistan's creditors say their agencies do not want to open themselves up to the charge of financing the Pakistani central government's civil war against East Pakistan. In January, well before the current rebellion, Pakistani government reserves were down to $184 million, compared to $342 million just a year before.

The monthly earnings from exports of West Pakistan, seat of the central government, are said to be only $28 million, while the western regions imports have been running $170 million monthly. The exports of the now embattled eastern region have traditionally made up much of the difference.

The Pakistani official, Aziz Ali Mohammed, was said to have four goals:

To persuade the United States to speed up delivery of the uncommitted portion of the current fiscal years $120 million in aid funds.

To get a moratorium from the World Bank on a forthcoming $40 million repayment.

To get a standby credit of $175 million from the international Monetary Fund.

To convene a meeting of the Pakistan creditors consortium, which includes the United States, Britain, France, West Germany, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands and Japan.

The initial U.S. response has apparently been cool. Asked whether the U.S. government was reviewing its future aid to Pakistan, State Department spokesman Charles Bray said that decisions of this nature are under continuing review in the light of the situation that has obtained in the last several months.

Of the $4 billion debt, more than $1.3 billion is owed to the United States directly and about 70 per cent of the U.S. credit is repayable in hard currency.

The next largest creditor is the World Bank and its related agencies, with almost $900 million. The U.S. share of those credits ranges between 30 and 40 per cent, depending on the category.

Pakistan has been in a serious economic state for about a year, and there has been much speculation about the advisability of a massive devaluation of the rupee.

Aside from problems over Pakistan's exports since the calamitous cyclone which hit East Pakistan late last year, the central government has been drawing down on its reserves for some time with large arms orders.

Pakistan's need for an international rescue operation gives the creditor nations leverage over the central government's campaign to repress the East Pakistani rebellion. But the Pakistani military government's financial crisis also gives the military rulers leverage of their own which could cancel out any international pressure attempts.

If Pakistan were to threaten to default on its external debt and some sources maintain hints of that have already ,been brandished‹the international financial community could be confronted with its biggest unpaid sum since World War II. It is an established precept of international finance that the debtor, not the creditor, calls the shots if the creditor wants his money back.