March, 14 2005	Monday	03 Safar 1426

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LAHORE, March 13: Former president Sardar Farooq Ahmed Khan Leghari says whatever Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed said on the issue of transfer of centrifuges to Iran “does not amount to divulging any secret because what he said was already known to the IAEA, foreign governments and international public opinion through newspapers’ articles and statements of responsible people”.

Talking to Dawn here on Sunday, he said the controversy on the sensitive issue should be closed and opposition parties exercise restraint rather than trying to score points.

Answering a question about the information minister’s statement on the transfer of centrifuges to Iran and demand by some MMA leaders that he as former president and two former army chiefs, generals Aslam Beg and Jehangir Karamat, be arrested and investigated, the former president said: “It is unfortunate that Sheikh Rashid … should have spoken about the issue of Dr Qadeer Khan providing centrifuges technology to Iran at this juncture, and it is even more unfortunate that the opposition parties, including the MMA and the PPP-P, should have reacted to Sheikh Rashid’s not-so-carefully made statements in a manner that would be exploited by all those opposed to Pakistan’s nuclear programme in a wrongful manner.”

The fact of the matter, Mr Leghari said was that “it has been Pakistan’s sacrosanct policy throughout every regime that Pakistan shall never proliferate nuclear technology and this was well understood by the entire nuclear establishment, including scientists and technologists at every level”.

To set the record right, Mr Leghari said he was not the president when Gen Aslam Beg was the army chief.

As for the situation during his tenure as president when Gen Karamat was the COAS, Mr Leghari said: “Never ever did the question of supplying any nuclear technology to any country arose during the time.”

He said to the best of his knowledge no government functionary, either civilian or military, ever proposed or suggested that any form of nuclear technology be ever exported, sold or passed on to others. “Every president, prime minister, COAS or other officials, scientists and technologists knew very well that the Government of Pakistan had clearly laid out a firm policy that Pakistan will never proliferate, because any attempt to proliferation would tantamount to jeopardizing Pakistan’s carefully constructed nuclear programme besides the moral objections to proliferation.”

Mr Leghari said: “Pakistan’s nuclear programme was essentially meant for peaceful purposes, but after the acquisition of nuclear weapons by India, Pakistan was obliged to develop its own deterrent. Thus, Pakistan’s nuclear weapons programme was only for its own deterrent requirements and for no other purpose whatsoever.”

The former president, who is now a member of the National Assembly, said: “It is unfortunate that some opposition parties, including MMA and PPP-P, should have reacted by alleging treason against the information minister when quite clearly the minister talked nonchalantly about matters he was not clearly briefed about and which are very sensitive and which impinge on Pakistan’s national security. The opposition should, in my opinion, act with greater restraint on such sensitive matters and look at the national interest rather than scoring points in a political debate.”

As for MMA’s demand that generals Beg and Karamat and himself be investigated, Mr Leghari said the MMA leadership was fully briefed by sensitive agencies in a meeting concerning nuclear secret leakages in 2004 and both Hafiz Husain Ahmed and Liaquat Baloch were present in the meeting representing their respective parties.

“They were told very clearly that the unfortunate leakages were the doings of some individuals along with their network, that there was no sanction behind such actions at any government or agency level and that such activities were crimes against the state in violation of Official Secrets Act and were tantamount to treason.”

Answering a question, he said: “I feel that the Government of Pakistan has handled the unsanctioned and unauthorized proliferation activities of some individuals/network in a very effective manner in accordance with the supreme interests of Pakistan and by coming clean with all the facts and by fully cooperating with the IAEA, President Gen Musharraf and his team have safeguarded Pakistan’s vital interests at a critical juncture.”