Word: islamabad
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...issue is Pakistan. Ostensibly Washington's key ally in the troubled region, Pakistan also maintains a longtime (if sometimes fraught) friendship with Tehran. And as President Asif Ali Zardari's government moves to strengthen ties with its neighbor in a bid to enhance Pakistan's economic prospects, Islamabad is keen to sit out the nuclear dispute. While Pakistan insists that it is not actively encouraging Iran to join it in the élite club of nuclear-weapons states, officials in Islamabad appear decidedly untroubled by developments across its southwestern border...
...Pakistan's role in Iran's nuclear development has been more than passive spectator, however; Abdul Qadeer Khan, the father of Pakistan's atom bomb, admitted five years ago that he passed nuclear secrets to Tehran and Libya. The disclosures stung Islamabad and forced then President Pervez Musharraf to act against Khan, before issuing a pardon and confining the proliferator, who is still hailed as a national hero in Pakistan, to house arrest. (See pictures of Pakistan's vulnerable North-West Frontier Province...
...Last month, A.Q. Khan briefly emerged from his hillside villa in Islamabad after the Lahore High Court lifted restraints on his movement. (Those restrictions have since been discreetly reimposed.) Unrepentant about his role in leading the world's largest proliferation network, Khan appeared in a rare television interview to cheer Iran's nuclear program. "If Iran succeeds in acquiring nuclear technology, we will be a strong bloc in the region to counter international pressure," Khan told the interviewer. "Iran's nuclear capability will neutralize Israel's power," he added, adopting the pan-Islamist rhetoric that has endeared him to conservative...
...Amad Khan, Pakistan's Deputy Foreign Minister, dismisses suggestions of lingering Pakistani support for Iran's nuclear program. "We have a three-tier system that prevents proliferation," he told TIME. But Islamabad is happy for Tehran to acquire nuclear capability for energy uses. "Since Iran is a signatory to the Non-Proliferation Treaty, if it requires capability for energy, we have no problems with that." The Deputy Foreign Minister added that Pakistan sees Iran as a "responsible" nation and therefore "doesn't expect Iran to pursue nuclear-weapons capability." (Read "Rehabilitating Pakistan's Nuke...
...Deputy Foreign Minister declined to comment on how Islamabad would react in the event of sanctions or tougher forms of pressure on Iran. Instead, Islamabad's focus remains on an "enhanced level of engagement" that can draw Iranian support for Pakistan's "energy, trade and communications" sectors. The new relationship with Iran has already seen a 28% rise in trade, according to Deputy Minister Khan, and with chronic shortages of electricity supply, Islamabad is eagerly awaiting the construction of a decades-old proposed Iran-Pakistan gas pipeline - plans for which remain doubtful...