07 July 2004	Wednesday	18 Jamadi-ul-Awwal 1425

WASHINGTON, July 6: The US administration has once again ruled out the possibility of re-imposing sanctions on Pakistan saying that no fresh evidence had emerged to warrant the sanctions.

US Assistant Secretary of State for South Asia Christina Rocca made this observation during a recent congressional hearing during which several congressmen demanded that sanctions be re-imposed on Pakistan.

The discovery of the A.Q. Khan network, the congressmen said, does not justify continuing US assistance to Pakistan because it allowed the network to sell nuclear technology to other states.

But the senior State Department official assured the lawmakers that the US administration has received no new information to warrant re-imposing of sanctions on Pakistan, which continues to cooperate with the United States in uprooting the Khan network.

The government of Pakistan, she said, has just introduced a bill into Parliament that, if enacted, would significantly strengthen Pakistan's existing export control regime.

"This is important, especially in the wake of A.Q. Khan case. The public exposure of A.Q. Khan's activities and investigations by various governments has disrupted his black market proliferation network. It's now in the process of being dismantled, and Pakistan is taking these investigations seriously," she said.

Explaining why the US government needed Pakistan's cooperation to prevent nuclear proliferation, Ms Rocca said: "It's a major goal of this administration to break up this network and go after absolutely every single corner of it in order to make sure that it cannot be reconstituted either by someone in Pakistan - or anybody else in the world."

She said so far the United States has had "very good" cooperation from the government of Pakistan in breaking apart the Khan network and a number of countries have been helping as well.

Besides uprooting the network, she said, the US government was also "working very hard" with Pakistan to increase their export control regimes. During the hearing a Democratic congressman from New York, Gary Ackerman, wanted to know if the United States government and the International Atomic Energy Agency have had direct access to Dr A.Q. Khan or any of his associates.

"I understand your concern, Congressman. I can only answer in very abbreviated form in this forum. As you know, it's an extremely sensitive matter," said Ms Rocca.

"To my knowledge, we have not had access to Dr Khan. And I do not know whether the IAEA has done so, but I do not believe they have." When asked if the United States has sought direct access to Dr Khan, she said: "In this forum, I can't answer. I can't answer that question."

Asked if Washington trusted the information it was receiving from Pakistan about the network, she said: "I think that it is being borne out by some of the investigations that we're seeing elsewhere in the world as well."

Congressman Ackerman, a strong supporter of India on the Hill, demanded to know if the government of Pakistan was also involved with the Khan network and if so, would the United States re-impose sanctions on Pakistan.

"No, sir. We have no information to contradict the previous assessments," said Ms Rocca. Previous assessments by the US government clearly said that the government of Pakistan was not involved with the network and in fact it tried to shut it down as soon as it heard about it.