Pakistan rejects hot pursuit deal with US

Pakistan on Monday said that India's official statement about nuclear weapons last week signalled an "important extension of Indian policy of using nuclear weapons".

Foreign ministry spokesman Aziz Ahmad Khan told a press briefing that the statement was "a further evidence that nuclear weapons and their use is very much part of Indian strategic policy".

Answering questions, Mr Khan elaborated that Delhi's announcement to use nuclear weapons if attacked with biological and chemical weapons was an important extension of India's policy of using of nuclear weapons.

The spokesman rejected as baseless a report which suggested that President Pervez Musharraf and US Secretary of State Colin Powell had agreed that hot pursuit of the fleeing Afghan fighters by the American forces across the Pakistan-Afghanistan border would continue but quietly without any side making statement about it.

The spokesman emphasised that there should be no ambiguity that only Pakistani forces had been conducting anti-terrorist operations within Pakistan for the last 14 months when the anti-terror war was unleashed by an international coalition led by the US armed forces. He said that only Pakistani forces would conduct the operations in future. However, he added, Pakistan had been cooperating with the international community, including the American forces, and coordinating in efforts against terrorists.

The spokesman maintained that the only incident or accident which took place recently when an American plane had bombed a madrassah inside the Pakistan border was under investigation. It remained to be determined "what fell and where," he said.