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.
Kouri Richins, a Utah mother who published a children’s book about grief after the death of her husband is to serve a life sentence for his murder without the possibility of parole, a judge ruled on Wednesday. Richins was convicted in March of aggravated murder for lacing a cocktail given to her husband, Eric Richins, with five times the lethal dose of fentanyl at their home near Park City in 2022. A jury also found her guilty of four other felonies, including insurance fraud, forgery and attempted murder for trying to poison her husband weeks earlier on Feb. 14, 2022, with a
‘GROSS NEGLIGENCE?’ Despite a spleen typically being significantly smaller than a liver, the surgeon said he believed Bryan’s spleen was ‘double the size of what is normal’ A Florida surgeon who is facing criminal charges after allegedly removing a patient’s liver instead of his spleen has said he is “forever traumatized” by that person’s death. In a deposition from November last year that was recently obtained by NBC, 44-year-old Thomas Shaknovsky described the death of 70-year-old William Bryan as an “incredibly unfortunate event that I regret deeply.” Bryan died after the botched surgery; and last month, a grand jury in Tallahassee indicted Shaknovsky on a charge of manslaughter. “I’m forever traumatized by it and hurt by it,” Shaknovsky added, also saying that wrong-site surgeries can happen “during
‘PERSONAL MISTAKES’: Eileen Wang has agreed to plead guilty to the felony, which comes with a maximum sentence of 10 years in federal prison A southern California mayor has agreed to plead guilty to acting as an illegal agent for the Chinese government and has resigned from her city position, officials said on Monday. Eileen Wang (王愛琳), mayor of Arcadia, was charged last month with one count of acting in the US as an illegal agent of a foreign government. She was accused of doing the bidding of Chinese officials, such as sharing articles favorable to Beijing, without prior notification to the US government as required by law. The 58-year-old was elected in November 2022 to a five-person city council, from which the mayor is selected
DELA ROSA CASE: The whereabouts of the senator, who is wanted by the ICC, was unclear, while President Marcos faces a political test over the senate situation Philippine authorities yesterday were seeking confirmation of reports that a top politician wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) had fled, a day after gunfire rang out at the Philippine Senate where he had taken refuge fearing his arrest. Senator Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa, the former national police chief and top enforcer of former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte’s “war on drugs,” has been under Senate protection and is wanted for crimes against humanity, the same charges Duterte is accused of. “Several sources confirmed that the senator, Senator Bato, is no longer in the Senate premises, but we are still getting confirmation,” Presidential
RSS