ISLAMABAD, April 2: Foreign Minister Khurshid Mehmood Kasuri said on Wednesday that Pakistan had protested against the US sanctions slapped on its nuclear research plant at Kahuta.
He told the Senate that the protest was conveyed when President Pervez Musharraf talked to US Secretary of State Colin Powell last week and earlier when Pakistan’s ambassador in Washington was informed of the US decision to impose sanctions on Khan Research Laboratories for allegedly exporting nuclear technology.
The minister made the statement after a Pakistan People’s Party senator from Sindh, Mohammad Enver Baig, sought clarification of a report about the Musharraf-Powell talk to know who had made the telephone call, before the upper house resumed debate on the US-led war on Iraq.
Mr Kasuri said the US authorities had informed Ambassador Jahangir Ashraf Kazi about their decision several days ago and added: “We have, of course, protested to them.”
He said the president had also “duly protested” when Mr Powell called him by telephone last week to discuss the matter.
The reference seemed to be about North Korea although Pakistan has repeatedly dismissed US fears about transfer of nuclear technology by Islamabad to Pyongyang in exchange for the Korean missile technology.
A US State Department spokesman has said sanctions have also been imposed on North Korea for exporting missile technology. Mr Kasuri said he had also told the US authorities during his recent visit to the US that Pakistan was a responsible state and had not indulged in nuclear proliferation.
He said nothing of the sort blamed on the KRL had happened, and added: “We have expressed our disappointment with the US government in no uncertain terms.”
Mr Kasuri said the government was not disturbed about any possible impact of the sanctions on the Kahuta plant, because the country’s nuclear and missile programmes were indigenous. “We have reached a certain level (of technology) where our nuclear and missile programmes are self-sustaining,” he said.
Defence Minister Rao Sikandar Iqbal told Dawn on Wednesday that Pakistan had taken up the matter with the United States and “the nation will hear a good news” about it in the future.
