Pakistan rejects deal with US on Bin Laden hunt
IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency
Islamabad, March 1, IRNA - Pakistan has rejected reports that it would allow American troops inside Pakistani territory to hunt for Osama Bin Laden. "These reports are absolutely absurd and baseless," military spokesman Major General Shaukat Sultan told state-run Radio Pakistan. He was responding to a news report in weekly New Yorker magazine which suggested that Pakistan has agreed to allow US troops inside Pakistani territory to hunt for Osama Bin Laden as a quid pro quo of pardoning of senior nuclear scientist Dr. A.Q. Khan. The weekly quoted an unnamed US intelligence official linking the llegedly planned deployment of US troops in Pakistan to President General Pervez Musharraf`s decision not to prosecute Qadeer Khan. Musharraf pardoned Khan last month after he confessed to selling nuclear secrets overseas. "Pakistan will never trade its territorial sovereignty," the spokesman said. He said there has been no agreement to allow foreign troops to operate inside Pakistani territory and that there has been no quid pro quo. "Pakistan will never compromise its sovereignty for any other issue. Pakistan has made it clear that only Pakistani troops will operate on our side of the territory." He said whatever decision Islamabad has taken about Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan was not the result of any deal. "It was clearly a decision of the Pakistan government which was thought to be in our national interest." Major General Sultan said that the United States might be transferring its forces to Afghanistan but this has nothing to do with Pakistan. Pakistani and US troops, operating on separate sides of the 2,500 kilometer Pakistan-Afghanistan border, have launched a fresh spring offensive against Al-Qaeda and Taliban militants in a stepped-up bid to capture the elusive Al-Qaeda chief. TK/TSH/214 End
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