US Secretary of State Colin Powell said on Monday he had told Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf he must pull up the nuclear smuggling ring led by its disgraced nuclear hero "by its roots."
Powell spoke publicly for the first time since a telephone call with Musharraf late Friday about the scandal over nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan, who admitted leaking nuclear secrets to Iran, Libya and North Korea.
"The Pakistani government has done quite a bit now to roll up the network," Powell told reporters.
PHOTO: AFP
"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," Powell said.
"He 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," Powell said.
Powell said he also spoke to Musharraf about the pardon granted to Khan.
Pakistan said Sunday that Musharraf had assured Powell that no such proliferation activity will happen again in the country.
The country's nuclear program is now "under firm control" of the National Command and Control Authority which has taken steps to prevent proliferation in future, Musharraf told Powell, aides said.
Powell discounted reports from Pakistan that he was about to visit the country to discuss the scandal.
"I have no plans to travel to Pakistan," he said, adding he read "with interest" reports quoting a government official in Pakistan as saying he planned to visit the country in "the near future."
"But neither in that conversation or in any other conversations have I indicated that a trip was imminent."
The US, which for months said it believes there has been no proliferation since Musharraf took power in a coup in 1999, takes his undertakings that no such leaks are now taking place seriously.
There has been speculation that covert US teams may already be in Pakistan, securing its nuclear facilities, or carrying out inspections to prevent further proliferation.
But Washington has been careful to not put heavy public pressure on Musharraf, concerned that he could be weakened politically if his hardline domestic political opponents see him as bowing to US pressure.
Musharraf defended his handling of the scandal and his pardon for Khan in an interview with NBC on Sunday.
"The dilemma is: he's a great man, he's a hero, and he's a hero of every individual in the street ... Yet he has done something which could bring harm to the nation. Now how do I deal with it? We had to handle it very carefully," Musharraf said.
A beauty queen who pulled out of the Miss South Africa competition when her nationality was questioned has said she wants to relocate to Nigeria, after coming second in the Miss Universe pageant while representing the West African country. Chidimma Adetshina, whose father is Nigerian, was crowned Miss Universe Africa and Oceania and was runner-up to Denmark’s Victoria Kjar Theilvig in Mexico on Saturday night. The 23-year-old law student withdrew from the Miss South Africa competition in August, saying that she needed to protect herself and her family after the government alleged that her mother had stolen the identity of a South
BELT-TIGHTENING: Chinese investments in Cambodia are projected to drop to US$35 million in 2026 from more than US$420 million in 2021 At a ceremony in August, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet knelt to receive blessings from saffron-robed monks as fireworks and balloons heralded the breaking of ground for a canal he hoped would transform his country’s economic fortunes. Addressing hundreds of people waving the Cambodian flag, Hun Manet said China would contribute 49 percent to the funding of the Funan Techo Canal that would link the Mekong River to the Gulf of Thailand and reduce Cambodia’s shipping reliance on Vietnam. Cambodia’s government estimates the strategic, if contentious, infrastructure project would cost US$1.7 billion, nearly 4 percent of the nation’s annual GDP. However, months later,
HOPEFUL FOR PEACE: Zelenskiy said that the war would ‘end sooner’ with Trump and that Ukraine must do all it can to ensure the fighting ends next year Russia’s state-owned gas company Gazprom early yesterday suspended gas deliveries via Ukraine, Vienna-based utility OMV said, in a development that signals a fast-approaching end of Moscow’s last gas flows to Europe. Russia’s oldest gas-export route to Europe, a pipeline dating back to Soviet days via Ukraine, is set to shut at the end of this year. Ukraine has said it would not extend the transit agreement with Russian state-owned Gazprom to deprive Russia of profits that Kyiv says help to finance the war against it. Moscow’s suspension of gas for Austria, the main receiver of gas via Ukraine, means Russia now only
‘HARD-HEADED’: Some people did not evacuate to protect their property or because they were skeptical of the warnings, a disaster agency official said Typhoon Man-yi yesterday slammed into the Philippines’ most populous island, with the national weather service warning of flooding, landslides and huge waves as the storm sweeps across the archipelago nation. Man-yi was still packing maximum sustained winds of 185kph after making its first landfall late on Saturday on lightly populated Catanduanes island. More than 1.2 million people fled their homes ahead of Man-yi as the weather forecaster warned of a “life-threatening” effect from the powerful storm, which follows an unusual streak of violent weather. Man-yi uprooted trees, brought down power lines and smashed flimsy houses to pieces after hitting Catanduanes in the typhoon-prone
RSS