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

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ISLAMABAD June 13: Information Minister Shaikh Rashid Ahmed has ruled out the possibility of rollback or capping of Pakistan’s nuclear programme and allayed the opposition’s suspicions in this regard.

Talking to newsmen at his parliament chamber on Friday, the minister described such statements by opposition as deliberate attempts at sabotaging President General Pervez Musharraf’s upcoming visit to the United States.

He said the allegation of freezing nuclear capability was baseless, for “we have passed that stage by becoming a declared nuclear power”. The question to freeze or abandon the nuclear facility could have been raised only when it were at the preparatory or experimental level, he elaborated.

The minister accused the opposition of taking dictation from its leaders abroad to disrupt the smooth running of democratic system in the country.

Asked why Prime Minister Zafarullah Khan Jamali had backtracked from the promise of convening a meeting of the heads of opposition parliamentary parties, he said: “We have never closed doors on reconciliatory talks”.

In reply to a question concerning the opposition’s demand that defence budget should be made subject to parliament’s scrutiny, the minister said the tradition of keeping defence expenditures immune to debate in parliament was in vogue all over the world.

He said the opposition, instead of extending cooperation to settle the issues, was complicating them with their negative approach.

Referring to the problems being created by the NWFP government, he warned that if coerced by the worsening of circumstances by the opposition, the federal government might perforce take “extreme steps”.

Asked about the fate of the government-MMA talks, he said: “We still believe that we and MMA are ideologically natural allies. But regrettably, he added, the opposition is using the religio-political alliance for its own interests”.

He claimed that had the MMA not played the game of other opposition parties it would have been in power today with its deputy prime minister, speaker and a number of ministers.