Pakistan President
Pervez Musharraf on Saturday blasted the country's disgraced nuclear scientist
Abdul Qadeer Khan for saying that he was forced into confessing that he was the
source of nuclear proliferation.
Musharraf, who is facing demands by political parties and lawyers to
resign, told a select group of local media that Khan's claim was totally
baseless.
Khan's recent remarks lent credence to the widely held view that the blame for
proliferation goes to the national army which controls the nuclear programme.
"It is an international and sensitive issue with implications for national
interest. All that I would say is that whatever he (Khan) is saying is
absolutely untrue, period!" the president said.
It was the first time that Musharraf spoke to the media since general elections
in February ended his military-backed government and put him in political hot
waters.
Retired General Musharraf said Khan's claim that he was pressured to confess on
television in early 2004 that he had passed on nuclear technology to Iran and
Libya was wrong and disappointing, and would hurt Pakistan's national interest.
Khan had made the confession after US agencies discovered the stealth but was
pardoned by Musharraf for being a national hero for making Pakistan a nuclear
weapons state.
He was under house arrest and held incommunicado until the new
democratic government eased life for him and he dramatically started giving
interviews on telephone in the past few weeks, dpa
reported.
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