April 2, 2003	Wednesday	Muharram 29, 1424

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ISLAMABAD, April 1: Pakistan demanded on Tuesday evidence from the United States to back allegations that it had exported nuclear technology to North Korea, following Washington’s announcement of sanctions on North Korea and a Pakistani nuclear facility.

“There is no evidence about what the US is saying,” Foreign Minister Khurshid Mehmood Kasuri told AFP, after the United States imposed sanctions on the A.Q. Khan Research Laboratories (KRL).

“We have already told them (US) that if they have any evidence... against KRL, they should bring it forward.”

The sanctions — a two-year ban on trade with US firms — were imposed because of the KRL’s “contributions” to efforts by an unnamed foreign “country, person or entity of proliferation concern” to develop weapons of mass destruction, US State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said.

Sanctions have also been slapped on North Korea for exporting missile technology, Mr Boucher said.

Pakistan has denied the charges and on Tuesday repeated insistence that it had never proliferated its nuclear know-how.

“Pakistan has neither imported nor exported this sensitive technology. What we have indigenously developed is solely for our defence,” Information Minister Sheikh Rashid told AFP.

He said President Pervez Musharraf had taken strong exception to US sanctions in his telephonic contact with the US Secretary of State Colin Powell on Monday.

“President Pervez Musharraf exchanged views on this issue with the US Secretary of State Colin Powell on telephone on Monday and conveyed Islamabad’s resentment about the same,” said Mr Rashid.

He accused the United States of “cold-shouldering a friend.”

“We are strongly committed to the fight against terrorism,” the information minister said in reference to the 18-month US-led campaign to wipe out the Taliban and Al Qaeda in which Pakistan has played a crucial role.—AFP