The United States will designate Pakistan a major non-Nato ally, a move that will facilitate purchase of US military hardware by Washington's key partner in the war on terror, Secretary of State Colin Powell said yesterday.

"We'll designate Pakistan as a major non-Nato ally for purposes of our future military-to-military relations," Powell told a joint news conference with Foreign Minister Khurshid Mehmud Kasuri after talks with him.

He said the Bush Administration would make a notification to the US Congress that would accord the status to Pakistan.

The step will bring Pakistan on a par with a dozen other countries that already have the non-Nato ally status, including Bahrain, Egypt, Kuwait, Israel, Japan and South Korea.

Officials and diplomatic sources said the move augurs well for Pakistan's long-standing quest for F-16 aircraft since Washington scrapped a deal for 28 F-16s in 1990s and refunded the amount hat Islamabad had paid.

After Pakistan joined the international anti-terror coalition following 9/11 attacks on US in 2001, Washington waived most of the sanctions imposed on the Islamic republic over its 1998 nuclear tests.

But the US has so far sidestepped Islamabad's request for F-16s, though President Bush in June last year announced a $3-billion five-year aid package for Pakistan, half of it meant for military purchases.

Powell held talks with President Pervez Musharraf on nuclear non-proliferation, India-Pakistan dialogue and the fight against terrorism, officials said. He also met Prime Minister Zafarullah Khan Jamali.

Powell praised Pakistani forces operations against Al Qaida and Taliban fugitives hiding in the tribal belt along the Afghan border and assured that US was committed to a "long-term" relationship with Pakistan.

On nuclear proliferation Powell said it was in the interest of Pakistan and the world that the network that had passed on nuclear secrets under Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan to "some very dangerous countries" was completely rooted out.

"We have to make sure that the network has been completely pulled up, to make sure that all those who were participating in the network in one way or the other have been identified.

"That is the only way we can know the network has been completely destroyed," he said.

Powell said Pakistan was cooperating in providing information gathered through its own probe into the nuclear transfers.

"Questions have risen as to not only what Dr Khan and associates might have been doing, but was there any other knowledge within the government at the time it was happening?"

"I think this is a logical and proper question," he said.

"We are receiving information from them and our services work very well together and I am confident that there will be full disclosures so that we can work together... to pull the entire network, root and branch."

Kasuri said Pakistan would spare no effort and that it would share full information on the transfers of nuclear technology by Dr Khan's network to Libaya, Iran and North Korea with the US and other friendly countries.

The hardline opposition, however, slammed the US plan to grant Pakistan a major non-Nato ally status, saying yesterday it would make the country a "client state."

"I will be very unhappy if Pakistan is inching towards this alliance with the US," Khurshid Ahmad, vice president of the Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) party, said.