March, 15 2005	Tuesday	04 Safar 1426

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ISLAMABAD, March 14: The Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) has asked Federal Minister for Information and Broadcasting Sheikh Rashid Ahmed to show courage and tender his resignation for issuing an ‘irresponsible’ statement regarding alleged transfer of centrifuges to Iran by Dr A.Q. Khan.

Talking to reporters at the Parliament House here on Monday, the PML-N information secretary, Siddiqul Farooque, said if the minister did not resign from the office, then he must be sacked for putting the country’s security at stake by issuing the statement on a sensitive matter.

He said the Foreign Office spokesman went on record on February 19, 2004 saying no proof had been found of nuclear technology transfer to Iran. Earlier, on January 14, he said Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Mohsin Aminzadeh had also stated in Islamabad that Iran obtained its nuclear technology from open international market.

Six weeks later Iranian Vice-President Dr Mohammed Reza Aref, visiting Islamabad in March 2004, categorically declared that Iran had obtained all its nuclear equipment from the free world for peaceful purposes, and that Iran did not aim at making nuclear weapons, he added.

Mr Farooque recalled that the “fake confessional statement” of Dr Qadeer was televised on February 4, 2004, and the Iranian Foreign Office spokesman Hamid Reza Asifi forthwith contradicted it stating that the top Pakistani scientist had not supplied any nuclear technology to Iran.