Ignoring the sharp reaction back home, former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto on Thursday stuck to her stand that she would allow UN inspectors to question disgraced nuclear scientist A Q Khan if she returns to power, saying it will dispel the impression that Pakistan is a "rogue" nation.
WASHINGTON: Ignoring the sharp reaction back home, former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto on Thursday stuck to her stand that she would allow UN inspectors to question disgraced nuclear scientist A Q Khan if she returns to power, saying it will dispel the impression that Pakistan is a "rogue" nation.
"...If under a PPP government the IAEA makes a request to us to give them access to A Q Khan, we certainly will do that because the People's Party will not cover up or collude in the cover up of proliferation activities," Bhutto told reporters at the Middle East Institute.
She was asked to clarify her earlier remarks that while the Pakistan People's Party would not grant the West access to Khan, it would give allow the IAEA, the UN atomic watchdog, to question him.
The Pervez Musharraf's regime has refused to grant access to the US which is eager to question Khan, the father of Pakistan's nuclear bomb, after he admitted to passing atomic secrets to Libya, Iran and North Korea in February 2004.
Bhutto's statement drew an angry response from the government as well opposition parties including Islamist alliance Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal and Imran Khan's Tehrik-e Insasf which dubbed it as against national interest.
The PPP leader stressed that the world must be sent a message that Pakistan is not a "rogue" nation involved in the peddling of nuclear technology.
"The A Q Khan affair has harmed Pakistan and it has harmed our nuclear assets. It has given the impression that we are a rogue nation. It is a wrong notion and it is unfair to the people of Pakistan," Bhutto, who has announced that she will return to Pakistan on October 18 after nine years in self-exile, said.
Bhutto said "I want to send a message of the real Pakistan, of the great people of Pakistan who do not believe in illegal activities and who did not want to export nuclear technology, who did not want to proliferate...."
She said Pakistan acquired nuclear technology "so that we could defend our homeland and parity with our neighbour India and it is because of that parity there has been no major war between India and Pakistan in such a long time."
Bhutto said protection of Pakistan's nuclear assets was in "giving a clear signal that the government of Pakistan does not protect those who illegally proliferate" and that it is a "a law abiding nation".
She, however, added that the issue of granting access to Khan was "a hypothetical question".
"The IAEA has not asked for the access and the government of Pakistan has also stated yesterday that they have put the questions that the IAEA wanted to him that the West wanted and they have given the IAEA and the West the answers that Mr A Q Khan gave," Bhutto said.
"We certainly want to protect Pakistan's nuclear assets and we take pride in the fact that Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was the father of Pakistan's nuclear programme. We take pride in the fact that under my government Pakistan's nuclear assets remained safe and Pakistan also acquired missile technology," she added.
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