Our new N-reactor is modest: Pak official

A new reactor being built by Pakistan could be used for "military purposes" and civilian power needs, but it will not lead to any massive increase in the country's nuclear arsenal, Islamabad's new Ambassador to the US Mahmud Ali Durrani said.

The Pakistani envoy also said that despite Islamabad's concerns over the Indo-US nuclear accord, it was very unlikely that the deal would get derailed.

Durrani dismissed the recent US media reports on the nuclear reactor under construction at Khushab as being "grossly exaggerated."

Quoting a report by the Institute for Science and International Security, a private arms control group, the US media had said the new reactor plant will generate enough plutonium to produce up to 50 bombs on an annual basis, a claim rejected by the Pakistani Ambassador.

"The plutonium may certainly be used for military purposes, but it is simply not the case that it will increase our capability X-fold," Durrani told The Washington Times.

However, he declined to give production figures for the new plant, but said that it would be far less than the 1,000 Megawatt estimate put out by the ISIS.

"I would love it to be 1,000 megawatts, because we certainly have the power needs," the Pakistani envoy was quoted as saying by the paper.

While expressing serious concern to the Bush administration about the Indo-US civilian nuclear accord, Durrani said it was very unlikely that the deal would get derailed.

"We know your administration is very keen for this deal, but we also don't want to see an imbalance with India that we would have to match," Durrani told the paper.

The Pakistani envoy said the A Q Khan smuggling operation was "an absolute, total, unmitigated disaster for my country," that raised doubts in Washington and elsewhere about Islamabad's reliability when it came to non-proliferation controls.

"It pulled our image down very badly and it will take us time to get out of this mess," he said.

Durrani also rejected suggestions that Pakistan is being less than forthcoming in the global war on terrorism and against al-Qaeda, saying that Pakistan's military is "perhaps the most liberal institution in the country today."

The Pakistani Ambassador also said that there is "no sympathy" for Osama bin Laden and other leaders of al-Qaeda and that it was more likely that bin Laden was holed up on the Afghan side of the border.

"I think if he were in Pakistan, he would be caught by now," Durrani said.