ISLAMABAD, 2 April 2008 — Pakistan has strongly denied an allegation by Afghan Minister of Parliamentary Affairs Farouq Wardak that it dumped its nuclear waste in Afghanistan’s Kandahar and Helmand provinces in the mid-1990s.
Commenting on the statement, Foreign Office spokesman Muhammad Sadiq told Arab News: “We have to ascertain first the credibility of the statement. So far the Afghan government has not made any complaint or charge against Pakistan on this issue.”
He said the report, which was aired by the BBC, said Pakistan had dumped its nuclear waste inside Afghanistan in 1996. At that time Pakistan’s main nuclear facility at Chashma near the Afghan border was not commissioned.
Sadiq told this correspondent: “I have spoken to the BBC and told them this allegation is like Pakistan attacking Great Britain in 1935.”
He said the ministry could not make further comments on the issue until the veracity of the statement is ascertained.
