05 March 2005	Saturday	23 Muharram 1426

WASHINGTON, March 4: US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will be visiting Pakistan in the third week of this month, US sources told Dawn .

The secretary of state's visit to Pakistan will be part of her first tour of South Asian nations since taking over her office from former secretary of state Colin Powell on January 28.

Besides Pakistan, she will also visit India, Afghanistan and possibly Bangladesh, the sources said. US and Pakistani officials were reluctant to disclose her schedule.

BENAZIR: PPP functionaries in the United States failed to arrange a meeting between Ms Rice and former prime minister Benazir Bhutto who arrived in the US capital earlier this week.

Ms Bhutto, however, did meet several mid-level US officials, and PPP sources said they were still hoping for a meeting with the secretary of state. On Wednesday, she met a mid-level official at the National Security Council, the US president's principal forum for national security and foreign policy matters.

Also on Wednesday, she had expected to meet Assistant Secretary of State for South Asian Affairs Christina Rocca, but the meeting could not take place because Ms Rocca was not well and was away from her office most of the week.

The State Department, however, had arranged for her to meet Kathryn Stephens, director for Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh affairs but Ms Bhutto could not come to the meeting.

Her party sources had also hinted at the possibility of a meeting with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice but US sources said such a meeting was unlikely. Meanwhile, Ms Bhutto had avoided meeting Pakistani journalists although she gave interviews to some American news outlets.

In an interview to Voice of America radio on Thursday Ms Bhutto said Pakistan had had a nuclear capability when she came into office in 1988, but she stressed that the Pakistani government did not assemble the nuclear components until India set off several tests in 1998.

"When I became prime minister, I was told we had not put together the bomb. We had the components of the bomb," she said. "And although we had the components of a nuclear weapon, we took the conscious decision not to put together a nuclear weapon, which is why when India detonated it, it took us some time to put together the weapon and actually have our own tests."

She said that Pakistan's nuclear program was developed in response to India's own nuclear ambition. Ms Bhutto said since Pakistan was both close to the United States and Iran, "it can informally play a role in clearing the misunderstandings and avert the war, as President Bush himself said that no decision has been made for war." The former prime minister also said that coordinated international efforts were needed to eliminate terrorism.