Islamabad, June 14: Pakistan Finance Minister Shoukat Aziz, under fire from opposition parties for visiting the country's secret nuclear weapons site, today said that he made the visit on behalf of Prime Minister Zafarullah Khan Jamali. Aiz told reporters that Jamali had originally been invited to visit the site but "as he could not go, he sent me".
However, the finance minister did not name the site nor mentioned the date of his visit, a local daily reported today.
The issue of his visit was raised in the Senate by Pakistan Muslim League-N parliamentary leader Ishaq Dar, who demanded that Aziz should explain his reported trip to the uranium-enrichment Khan Research Laboratories (KRL). Alleging that his visit was aimed at rolling back or freezing Pakistan's nuclear programme, Dar linked the visit to the finance minister's forthcoming visit to Untied States.
Aziz is expected to go to US with President Pervez Musharraf to negotiate a long-term economic deal for Pakistan. In his address to the Senate two days ago, Aziz assured the Upper House that no harm had been done to the country's nuclear programme by his visit. "Pakistan's nuclear security, sovereignty and integrity will never be compromised in any way." Bureau Report