June 14, 2003	Saturday	Rabi-us-Sani 13, 1424

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ISLAMABAD, June 13: Finance Minister Shaukat Aziz said on Friday it was on behalf of Prime Minister Zafarullah Khan Jamali that he made a trip to a nuclear site that has been questioned by an opposition party.

He told reporters that the prime minister had originally been invited to visit the site. “He could not go and he sent me,” the minister said without naming the site.

He declined to say whether he went there alone or was accompanied by some other dignitary.

Pakistan Muslim League-N parliamentary leader in the Senate, Ishaq Dar, had demanded of the finance minister on Thursday to explain his reported trip to the uranium-enrichment Khan Research Laboratories in view of what he feared to be moves for a rollback or freezing of Pakistan’s nuclear programme.

In a speech to the Senate the same day, Mr Aziz assured the upper house that no harm had been done to the country’s nuclear programme.

“Pakistan’s nuclear security, sovereignty and integrity will never be compromised in any way,” the minister said.