ISLAMABAD: Pakistan has sent a top official to the U.S. to explain its nuclear programme in the wake of the North Korean nuclear tests and the resulting spotlight on the A.Q. Khan proliferation network, and to present Islamabad's case for a civil nuclear energy pact with Washington, along the lines of the Indo-U.S. agreement.

A senior official with "extensive familiarity with the country's nuclear infrastructure," and who wanted to remain unidentified, briefed American and Pakistani journalists in Washington D.C "to correct misperceptions about the Pakistani nuclear programme," newspapers here reported without naming the official.

But the News said Lt. Gen Khalid Kidwai, head of the powerful Strategic Planning Division that oversees the nuclear programme, was visiting Washington to convince influential opinion in the U.S. that his country is a responsible nuclear power, stopping short of identifying him as the official who conducted the background briefing on Monday. Aiming to establish that there was no danger of the nuclear programme falling into the wrong hands, the official used a PowerPoint presentation to explain the command and control structure of the programme, and the safeguards in place since the 1998 nuclear tests and the discovery of the A.Q. Khan proliferation racket.

Questioned on the network, the official said Dr. Khan smuggled out 200 P1 centrifuges, and "three or four" of the P2 type to Dubai from where they might have been transferred to Iran and North Korea. But after interrogating the scientist, investigators had come to the conclusion that the technology provided to North Korea was meant for developing civil nuclear energy, the Dawn quoted the official as saying.

This had been corroborated by U.S. intelligence that had established that North Korea's October 9 nuclear test was conducted on a plutonium-based weapon while the Pakistan nuclear programme was uranium based, the official said.

The official said Dr. Khan was still a revered figure in Pakistan but his proliferation racket had "cast a long shadow" on the country's image.

"We have years of baggage to shed," he said, adding that Pakistan had "a good system now down to the grassroots." He ruled out handing over Dr. Khan to American or international interrogators, saying he was a national hero in Pakistan.

Strategic objectives

The official also argued that the proposed India-U.S. civil nuclear energy deal could prove counter-productive to U.S. strategic objectives in South Asia if Islamabad was not offered a similar deal.

The official said Pakistan was looking at an 800 per cent increase in its energy production, from 19,500 MW to 163,000 MW, to maintain its economic growth. Pakistan wanted to increase its nuclear energy production from 400 MW to 8,800 MW.

The official argued that for this reason, the U.S. should adopt a "criteria-based" approach to sharing its nuclear technology, and not a "country-specific" one as with the India-U.S. nuclear pact.

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