ISLAMABAD, June 20: Contrary to recurring reports in the international media that the US is stepping up pressure on Pakistan to allow it direct access to Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan for questioning, sources in a key government institution maintain that to date there has been no such request from a single official of the Bush Administration.
“It is all in the media…at the US Administration level never once have we been requested for A.Q. Khan,” informed sources told Dawn on Tuesday.
These sources disclosed that in the aftermath of 9/11 the US government had offered technical support to Pakistan to secure its strategic assets. The offer made by the then US secretary of state Colin Powell during a visit here was accepted on the condition that Pakistan would “pick and choose” from it. The cooperation that is still continuing is strictly of non-intrusive nature with clear red lines drawn which include no visits to the nuclear sites by the Americans, the sources pointed out. The rudimentary US technical assistance is confined to equipment for security personnel at the nuclear sites and includes metal detectors, helmets etc., sources said.
Other sources privy to A.Q. Khan interrogations assert that the main focus of his grilling was not the money he made out of clandestine international deals but on the secrets that he had leaked.
