ISLAMABAD, March 14: In an apparent move to cool down a controversy, the government reassured the National Assembly on Monday it would not allow a third party to interrogate Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan about his alleged role in nuclear proliferation and asked the international community to trust Pakistan’s own investigation into the matter.
Information and Broadcasting Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed also told the lower house the government had no responsibility if Dr Khan, father of Pakistan’s nuclear bomb and now in virtual detention, had transferred any ‘antiquated’ nuclear material to any foreign country.
The minister was speaking while opposing two identical opposition adjournment motions seeking a debate on his statement last Thursday when he said Dr Khan had transferred nuclear centrifuges to Iran on his own.
His statement to reporters sparked a controversy in the National Assembly and outside about its credibility and motives, with opposition parties accusing him of endangering national security and close relations with Iran, whose nuclear programme is under an international scrutiny.
Monday’s discussion came a day after international media reports quoted unidentified diplomats in Vienna as saying that Pakistan would soon hand over components of used centrifuges to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the UN nuclear watchdog, in connection with a probe into the Iranian nuclear programme. Pakistan has rejected the reports as baseless.
“If the international community trusts us, they should also trust our inquiry,” Sheikh Rashid said in his Urdu-language remarks in the house and added: “No third party will be allowed to do it.”
Speaker Chaudhry Amir Hussain reserved his ruling on the admissibility of the adjournment motions tabled by members of the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal and the People’s Party Parliamentarians (PPP), only to see the MMA and then the PPP walking out of the house as a further protest against the minister’s statement.
The house also witnessed a token walkout by some members of the Pakistan People’s Party faction led by Defence Minister Rao Sikandar Iqbal to protest against what they called character assassination of the Minister for Kashmir Affairs and Northern Areas Faisal Saleh Hayat in connection with a default case against his family’s textile mill.
