ISLAMABAD, Feb 7: US Secretary of State Colin Powell will be discussing mainly the progress so far made in the hunt for Osama bin Laden and the nuclear proliferation matters with the authorities here during his four-day visit to Pakistan later this month.

Informed sources told Dawn here on Saturday that Mr Powell will hold meetings with President Gen Pervez Musharraf and other senior Pakistani authorities, including head of the Strategic Planning Division, Lt-Gen Khalid Kidwai.

Sources said the US secretary of state will discuss with the Pakistani authorities certain strategies to arrest Osama bin Ladin and Taliban leader Mullah Omar who were suspected to be still alive and hiding near the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.

Some members of the American Association of Nuclear Scientists had earlier visited Pakistan after 9/11 and held extensive debriefing sessions with two Pakistani scientists - Bashiruddin Mehmood and Abdul Majeed - to find out if there was any truth in the allegations that they had shared nuclear information with Al Qaeda terrorists.

Sources did not rule out the possibility of a repeat of such a visit to Pakistan by some members of the American association in the near future to find out the extent of nuclear leakage, and also to study measures being put in place to plug these leaks.

The sources also said that Pakistan was obliged to give the details of information gathered about nuclear proliferation and the extent of involvement of Dr A.Q.Khan and his associates in the matter to International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). The matter, they said, did not end with the pardon granted to Dr Khan by the president.

"Pakistan has conducted investigation about these scientists on the request of the IAEA which has to prepare a report on this issue. Therefore, there is no way our government can say 'no' to them about anything they may ask," a source said.

He said it was Pakistan, and not the United States, which has pardoned Dr A.Q. Khan and it was the latter on whose behalf IAEA was investigating the issue of nuclear proliferation.