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ISLAMABAD, Feb 12: The nuclear scandal seems poised to fray tempers of parliamentary rivals when the Senate begins its 10th session on Friday evening. It will be hard for the government to avoid a debate on the issue as well as to convince doubters why to blame only scientists for nuclear proliferation that has put a question mark on the future of what the country has so far regarded its best deterrence against a military threat.
The opposition Democratic Alliance - grouping the ARD and its smaller allies - and the MMA are likely to press for an immediate debate they have sought through separate adjournment motions submitted to the upper house secretariat.
But the ruling coalition, led by the PML-Q, appeared reluctant to engage in a parliamentary debate when the government was still continuing investigations even after Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan publicly accepted responsibility for the proliferation he said he did in "good faith" and President Pervez Musharraf's grant of a pardon to the "national hero" for his self-confessed guilt.
The opposition parties are likely to question Dr Khan's confession that they, like many other people at home and abroad, see as a possible compromise to shield other actors in the drama. At least three adjournment motions have been filed by Democratic Alliance parties and one by the MMA.
OPPOSITION'S FEARS: Opposition sources said they feared the government might try to avoid an immediate debate by starting a discussion on President Musharraf's address to a joint sitting of the two houses of parliament on Jan 17, during which rules will not allow other debates.
But, parliamentary sources said the opposition would protest against such a course and could still manage to agitate the matter through points of order that parliamentarians often use to discuss everything under the sun.
The opposition had raised the nuclear issue even in the previous Senate session that ended on Jan 23, but then it was about the interrogation of some scientists and other officials of the Khan Research Laboratories after the International Atomic Energy Agency conveyed its concerns to Pakistan about the alleged transfer of nuclear know-how to Iran, Libya and North Korea.
But the issue took a new twist after Dr Khan accepted responsibility in a televised statement. The scandal seems to have acquired a new urgency after Wednesday's speech by US President George W. Bush calling for tougher international safeguards against nuclear proliferation, including limiting the number of nations allowed to produce nuclear fuel.
Senator Farhatullah Babar of the People's Party Parliamentarians said that besides adjournment motions, he had submitted a resolution seeking its passage by the upper house to demand the establishment of a bipartisan parliamentary inquiry commission to hold an in-camera investigation into the alleged nuclear sales, fix responsibility and recommend punishment, and to review the nuclear command and control system.
He told Dawn that such a commission could identify violator of a doctrine of nuclear restraint adopted by Pakistan in early 1989 after it was agreed between then president Ghulam Ishaq Khan, prime minister Benazir Bhutto and army chief General Mirza Aslam Beg.
Senator Babar said Islamabad had committed in that doctrine not to export nuclear technology, ordered scientists against undertaking foreign visits without a written government permission, and proclaimed that Pakistan had acquired enough fissile material and did not need further stockpiles.
"Now questions arise whether this doctrine was violated by individuals among scientists or military, or by military as an institution without the knowledge and permission of the government or whether subsequent governments reversed the doctrine," he said.
