ISLAMABAD, March 8: Prime Minister Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali said on Monday that no Al Qaeda network existed in Pakistan, but sometimes its activists entered Pakistan through the porous border with Afghanistan.

Talking to newsmen at the parliament house after presiding over a meeting of the PML parliamentary party and its allies, the prime minister said he had stated on various occasions that Al Qaeda did not operate from the Pakistani soil. Some of its members kept on roaming in the hilly terrain along the border with Afghanistan but it was wrong to suggest that they were on Pakistani soil in large numbers, he added.

Responding to a question about recent visits by foreign dignitaries including British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw and the upcoming visit of US Secretary of State Colin Powell after the nuclear proliferation episode, the prime minister said: "Pakistan's nuclear programme is safe and there is no foreign pressure on us for its rollback."

Asked about changes hinted by him in the administrative set-up of Sindh and Balochistan to improve the law and order situation in the wake of recent terrorist incidents, Mr Jamali said: "I have just returned to Islamabad, but wherever the need to bring about changes in the administrative set-up is felt, they (changes) would be made accordingly."

When asked about the possibility of involvement of a foreign hand in the Quetta killings, the prime minister said: "Involvement of foreign hand cannot be ruled out straightaway."

When his attention was drawn to allegations levelled by the MMA and its threat to launch a protest movement against the military operation in Wana, Mr Jamali said it was the job of the government to conduct such operations which it was doing. It had nothing to do with the opposition, he added.

When asked about reasons behind delay in the appointment of leaders of the opposition in the National Assembly and Senate, the prime minister said: "Ask the opposition. They have not been able to develop a consensus on this issue."