ISLAMABAD, Dec 19: The Foreign Office on Tuesday rubbished as ‘fabricated’ a claim by President Hamid Karzai’s spokesman that Afghan security forces had apprehended a Pakistani intelligence officer for espionage.

“This is all fabricated. They could have used coercive measures to make him say things which have no relevance to reality,” was the Foreign Office spokesperson Tasnim Aslam’s reaction to the latest Afghan allegation.

Discarding the pervasive paranoid of the Afghan government, the spokesperson stated: “There is no Pakistani spy in Afghanistan.”

Ms Aslam said Islamabad had not been informed by Kabul about the arrest of any Pakistani and added: “Our embassy has sought consular access which the Afghan government is required to provide under the International Vienna Convention.”

When asked what could have prompted such a “fabricated’ claim, the spokesperson pointed to the escalating insurgency problem inside Afghanistan which she said was essentially an internal one.