Pak won't go on overdrive to oppose Indo-US N-deal

Amid indications that both Democrats and Republicans were keen to get the Indo-US nuclear deal ratified in the American Senate, Pakistan seems reconciled to the agreement getting Congressional sanction saying it would not go on an 'overdrive' to oppose it.

"We have our fingers on the pulse of the situation but we are not going into overdrive to oppose or stop the deal," Pakistan's Ambassador to the United States Mahmud Durrani told daily The News on Thursday.

"We have been following it all the time and there is overwhelming support in both the parties to go through the deal. The agreement is not stuck in policy but it is stuck in the mechanics," he said.

Durrani said Pakistan has already informed every policy-making body in the US. "Our position on the deal is clear. We were thinking it would be passed before the elections. It may pass in the lame-duck session or may still be delayed, but the bottom-line is America has decided to do this," the Pakistan Ambassador said.

"If there is any delay it will be because of the internal politics in US," he said.

Pakistan initially opposed the agreement on the ground it was discriminatory and lobbied hard with Washington to extend a deal similar to the Indo-US one to it. Some Pakistani officials were hopeful that Islamabad could make a case for a review of US stand to refuse it to be extended to Islamabad once it cleared the mess over non-proliferation in the wake of the racket run by Pakistan's disgraced nuclear scientist A Q Khan.