Islamabad dubs U.S. sanctions unjustified

Pakistan dubbed the U.S. decision to slap sanctions against Islamabad as unjustified and unwarranted, but said its indigenous missile development programme would not be affected by discriminatory technology control regimes.

A foreign office spokesman expressed the hope that Washington would review the decision and remove the latest sanctions as well as those, which had been imposed on many Pakistani civilian facilities two years ago. Washington waived sanctions on China concerning the export of missiles and related technology but imposed them on Islamabad and Tehran on Tuesday.

The foreign office spokesman, explaining Pakistan's position on the subject, regretted that the U.S. had not provided any evidence of the charges. "The U.S. has never provided any evidence of the alleged transfer nor did it discuss the matter with Pakistan in the recent past," he said.

He detailed the background behind the latest development and said the U.S. had first raised the question of alleged transfer of missile technology by China to Pakistan in early nineties. The question resurfaced recently during the China-U.S. consultations.

"But at the time when this issue was first raised and subsequently too, Beijing had categorically stated that it had not supplied to Pakistan any missile technology or missiles, which violated the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR) guidelines accepted by China voluntarily, even though it was not a party to the regime."

Pakistan's Foreign Minister Abdul Sattar had also said when newspapers repeated the charges that there had been nothing inconsistent with the MTCR even as a Chinese spokesman had denied the reports. The spokesman said that Pakistan had stated that it had not received any transfer of technology from China inconsistent with the MTCR guidelines.

He maintained that the latest U.S. decision to slap curbs on Pakistani ministry of defence and space and upper atmospheric research commission (Suparco) on the basis of the alleged transfer of technology was unjustified.

"Pakistan has indigenous missile development programme, which is part of our nuclear deterrent and indispensable to our security. This programme will be maintained and will not be affected by any discriminatory regime such as the MTCR."