ISLAMABAD, March 21: Pakistan said on Friday that it had not yet received any request from the Bush administration to snap diplomatic ties with Baghdad and expel Iraqi diplomats in Islamabad.

“No such request has come so far,” said the foreign office spokesman Aziz Ahmed Khan when a response was sought on reports that the United States had asked foreign governments around the world to close down Iraqi embassies.

However, some senior Pakistani officials here believe that if such a demand was put forth by the Bush administration, Islamabad was unlikely to yield to it.

US secretary of State Colin Powell in an unexpected disclosure at the UN Security Council on Feb 5 had maintained that Al Qaeda contacts with Iraq were conducted through the Iraqi embassy in Islamabad.

The first reaction came from none other than President Musharraf who said Pakistan had no information of any such contact when questioned by a reporter after the NAM Summit in Kuala Lumpur on Feb 25.

Subsequently, senior Pakistani intelligence officials conveyed to the Americans that Mr Powell’s claim was unfounded and that there was no evidence of Al Qaeda contact with Iraq on Pakistan’s territory.

Notably, Pakistan is the only country whose head of the state had clearly demanded in his statement at the 13th NAM Summit that “equitable disarmament” was needed and not selective disarmament.

Meanwhile, within senior policy-making circles in Pakistan questions around Prime Minister Jamali’s forthcoming trip to the US are also being raised. There was concern in some circles that for Mr Jamali to be seen with President Bush at this time could be politically damaging.