ISLAMABAD, Jan 21: Pakistan is genuinely concerned about conditions of its prisoners held by the United States in the Guantanamo Bay and those in Afghanistan and has raised the issue at all appropriate levels with the American high-ups and the Kabul authorities for their early release.

This was stated in the Senate by Foreign Minister Khurshid Mehmood Kasuri on Wednesday while speaking on a motion sought to be moved by Senator Prof Khurshid Ahmed of the MMA.

The minister also said that Pakistan was still pursuing the issue of bugging of its embassy in London by UK intelligence agencies and had sent three teams to London for investigations and taken up the matter with the British authorities.

Mr Kasuri told the house that he had raised the issue of Pakistani prisoners in the United States with the attorney-general and home department and also during his meeting with Secretary of State Colin Powell.

Earlier, Prof Khurshid said that the ISI in violation of constitutional provisions had been exempted from recruitment of its personnel by the Federal Public Service Commission.

The FPSC did not even implement the orders of Gen Musharraf who as chief executive had asked for discontinuation of the practice as early as 2000, and Prime Minister Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali instead of taking any action against the violation, gave his approval of the action from retrospective affect early this month to cover the whole period during which the violation occurred.

The Senate also debated a call-attention notice seeking discussion on the wheat shortage problem being faced by the governments of the NWFP, Sindh and Balochistan.

Information Minister Shaikh Rashid Ahmed told the house in response that the ISI had been excluded from the purview of Federal Public Service Commission under an order of the prime minister.