PESHAWAR, Feb 25: Jamaat-i-Islami chief Qazi Hussain Ahmed has asked the Jamali government to convene an all-party conference on the crisis concerning the nuclear issue, and evolve a consensus to get it solved.

Speaking at a 'Meet the Press' programme organized by the Khyber Union of Journalists here at the Peshawar Press Club on Wednesday, the JI chief alleged that Gen Pervez Musharraf had made Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan a scapegoat "to protect himself and his coterie."

He said Dr Khan had been forced to take the responsibility of "all sins" but it would not work in the long run. At present, he said, Pakistan was under siege and the military alone could not steer Pakistan out of the present crisis. He said it needed a national consensus and unity to get it resolved.

Qazi, who is also the acting president of the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal, warned that the United States, "which had given a free hand to the military generals to deal with Dr Khan on their own," might take up the nuclear proliferation issue with Pakistan in the future.

He said the US silence over the nuclear proliferation even after the "arranged" confession by Dr Khan was meaningful. He said Gen Musharraf's stand on the nuclear issue had turned the country into an "irresponsible state", which was alarming for Pakistan's security.

"Our rulers have provided an opportunity to the western media to paint us as an irresponsible state", he added.

All the atomic powers, he said, had sought the services of the under-world for their nuclear programmes. The US administration, Qazi said, was constrained owing to the ongoing resistance inside Afghanistan and its involvement in Iraq but, in the future, the US administration might reprimand Pakistan on the nuclear question.

He declined to buy the notion that Pakistan was a strategic partner of the United States. Instead, he claimed, India was the US friend in this region. The US would promote and protect India's strategic interests in this part of the world, he observed.

He described as wrong and illogical General Musharraf's pet line - Pakistan first. He said the general had to take a U-turn when President Bush asked him to either be a friend or an enemy of the US in its war on terrorism, but it didn't solve the problem, the MMA's acting chief said.

Subsequently, he betrayed the Kashmir cause in the name of "Pakistan comes first" by halting visits of Kashmiri people across the Line of Control, which Pakistan had refused to recognize as an international boundary.

Now, Qazi added, Gen Musharraf was carrying out a military operation against the peaceful tribesmen in Fata "to implement the US agenda." The MMA was opposed to this operation, he contended.

He said the US was in favour of only five atomic powers and it didn't recognize the third world countries as members of the atomic club. The US was opposed to the NPT, but Pakistan was being accused of nuclear proliferation, he added. He accused the NWFP governor of creating hurdles in the way of MMA government, which, he said, had changed the political culture in the province.