Pak says it will not block

Pakistan says it will not block Indo-US nuke deal

Washington/Islamabad: Pakistan says it will not seek to block the Indo-US civilian nuclear deal, even though the stance could invite criticism at home for President Pervez Musharraf.

"We have our fingers on the pulse of the situation but we are not going into overdrive to oppose or stop the deal," the Pakistani Ambassador to the US, Maj-Gen (retd) Mahmud Durrani, told The News daily in Washington.

Durrani was echoing what his Foreign Minister Khurshid Mahmood Kasuri said a day earlier, reflecting Pakistan's realisation that the nuclear deal could be passed by the US Congress, despite the Republicans' loss of control of the Senate and because the victorious Democrats are ready to help out.

The newspaper put it gingerly: "A battered and humiliated President George W Bush is pushing hard to get his hallmark nuclear technology deal with India to pass through the outgoing Congress, known as the lame duck House, and the Democrats are eager to cooperate."

It said that this new situation is likely to bring some domestic criticism for Musharraf and his foreign policy managers, "but Pakistanis are not ready to make this an issue at this point in time".

It quoted Durrani as saying: "We have been following it all the time and there is overwhelming support in both the parties to go through the deal. The agreement is not stuck in policy but it is stuck in the mechanics."

He said Pakistan has already informed every policy-making body in the US of "our position on the deal."