Washington, February 10
The US has asked Pakistan to “pull up by its roots” the secret network of nuclear sales run by its top scientist A.Q. Khan even as President Pervez Musharraf blamed Washington for not providing evidence of the scientist’s activities in time.
“If they knew it earlier, they should have told us,” Mr Musharraf said in an interview to New York Times published today, adding: “maybe a lot of things would not have happened.”
The General acknowledged for the first time that he had suspected Mr Khan’s activities for at least three years and said it was not until October that American officials provided him with evidence of his involvement in nuclear proliferation.
He said he had seen signs that Mr Khan was sharing nuclear technology, including “illegal contacts, maybe suspicious contacts” and “suspicious movements” connected to his laboratory.
US Secretary of State Colin Powell told reporters here that the Pakistani Government had done quite a bit now to roll up the network.
“I said to President Musharraf that we wanted to learn as much as we could about what Mr Khan and the network was up to, and it has to be pulled up by its roots and examined to make sure that we have left nothing behind,” Mr Powell said.
Mr Musharraf, he said, “assured me that that was his objective as well, and that he would share with us all of the information that they came up with”.
State Department spokesman Richard Boucher at a separate briefing said: “We look forward to their (Pakistan) continuing and finishing their investigation and sharing their results with appropriate international organisations.”
Mr Musharraf in the interview said he was concerned that investigating Mr Khan — a national hero in Pakistan — for his role in developing its
nuclear weapons could provoke a political backlash. —
PTI
