ISLAMABAD, July 24: Information and Broadcasting Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed has said that Pakistan will consider sending its troops to Baghdad only if the Iraqi interim government makes a formal request to the effect.

"We will then take that request to parliament to seek its approval," he told reporters on Saturday.

Referring to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan's telephonic conversation with President Gen Pervez Musharraf's the other day, he said that Mr Annan had requested the president to send troops to Iraq.

However, the information minister pointed out, Gen Musharraf made it clear to the UN chief that the troops could be sent only if a formal request came from the Iraqi interim government and soldiers from other Muslim countries also joined the forces and finally, if parliament gave its approval to it.

Mr Ahmed criticized the opposition parties for spreading 'rumours' that the government had already decided to send troops to Iraq. The opposition, he said, was trying to exploit the issue to gain political mileage.

The matter, he said, was at the 'initial stages of consideration', adding that the time had not yet come to take it to parliament. He said the government would take a decision on the issue one way or the other in the supreme national interest.

He rejected the opposition's demand that a judicial commission be constituted on the Kargil issue, saying there was no need to waste the precious time of the nation by holding an inquiry into the matter.

Mr Ahmed regretted that the opposition had intentionally raised the Kargil issue at a time when the Saarc foreign ministers were in Islamabad and added that it was doing so only to keep itself politically alive.

He said President Musharraf had made it clear to Indian External Affairs Minister Natwar Singh that bilateral relations could only be improved after the settlement of the Kashmir dispute.

The minister said that August 18 by-elections in Tharparkar and Attock would be held in a transparent manner.

He said there was no truth in the opposition's claims that the state machinery was being used in the election campaign of Finance Minister Shaukat Aziz. He said international observers were being invited to monitor the by-polls.