During their joint Press conference after the one-to-one talks between visitingPresident George Bush and Pakistan President Gen. Pervez Musharraf at Islamabadon March 4, 2006, Mr. Bush was asked about the likelihood of civiliannuclear energy co-operation between the US and Pakistan similar to the one theUS had agreed to with India.
He replied as follows: "We discussed a civilian nuclear program, and Iexplained that Pakistan and India are different countries with different needsand different histories. So, as we proceed forward, our strategy will take ineffect those well-known differences."
Pakistani journalists also asked separately U.S. Secretary of State CondoleezzaRice on this subject. She replied: "There are a lot of technological waysto pursue [Pakistan's] energy needs, but civil nuclear just isn'tpossible."
According to well-informed sources, during the talks between Mr. Bush andthe General, considerable time was taken up by questions relating to the furtherinterrogation of A. Q. Khan, the so-called father of Pakistan's atomic bomb, andthe need to get at Osama bin Laden before he carried out the threat uttered byhim in his recent message of January to carry out another terrorist strike inthe US homeland.
Even though Gen. Musharraf has been projecting the A. Q. Khan case asclosed, two requests from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) atVienna were still pending. The first related to the IAEA's request for somesamples of the centrifuges used in Pakistan's uranium enrichment plant at Kahutaand enriched uranium produced there. The IAEA Inspectors wanted to compare themwith what they found in Iran. Musharraf was resisting this request till March oflast year. Ms. Rice had strongly taken up this issue with the Generalduring her visit to Islamabad in March last year. Under sustained pressure fromthe US, he ultimately agreed to hand over the samples to the IAEA and this hasalready been done.
The second request of the IAEA, which is still pending, is relating to theindependent interrogation of A. Q. Khan by IAEA investigators, preferablyoutside Pakistan. Musharraf has repeatedly rejected this request, pointing outthat his investigators have already thoroughly questioned Khan and hisassociates and shared the resulting information with the IAEA. He was sayingthat the IAEA's demand for an independent interrogation amounted to distrustingwhat Pakistan had told it. He was also claiming that handing over A. Q. Khan,who is immensely popular in Pakistan, to foreign investigators could destabilisethe political situation in Pakistan and damage the on-going war against Al Qaeda.
It is learnt that when Musharraf urged Mr. Bush to agree to civilian nuclearenergy co-operation with Pakistan, Mr. Bush told him that so long as the entiretruth regarding the role of A. Q. Khan and his associates in nuclear weaponproliferation and their suspected contacts with Iraq and Al Qaeda was notestablished to the satisfaction of the American public and the internationalcommunity, the question of any US-Pakistan co-operation in the field of civiliannuclear energy just did not arise.
He reportedly said that while the IAEA had considerable information on A. Q.Khan's role with regard to Libya and Iran, the picture is incomplete with regardto North Korea, his contacts with the Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq and with AlQaeda. In this connection, he also referred to the recent warning of bin Ladenabout another terrorist strike in the US homeland being planned by Al Qaeda.
It is believed that Mr. Bush further said that it was in the interest ofPakistan and Musharraf himself that bin Laden and his No. 2 Ayman al-Zawahiriwere captured or killed before they carried out their threat against the US andthe entire truth regarding A. Q. Khan and his associates was established by anindependent international investigation.
According to these sources, the General replied that he may be agreeable to afurther interrogation of Khan in Pakistani territory by a team of jointinterrogators from the US and Pakistan, provided the modalities for such aninterrogation could be worked out to the mutual satisfaction of the two sides.However, he did not make a firm commitment.
Gen. Musharraf briefly referred to this in a subsequent interview on March 5,2006, with the CNN. He said: "Pakistan and the US had discussed before thatwe need to have some kind of an interrogation with him, which is mutually in amethodology which will satisfy mutual concerns. And we are going forward onthat, so there was no need for further discussion."
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B. Raman is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. ofIndia, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai.
