Pakistan has formally approached the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), seeking a deal similar to the one between the United States and India to produce nuclear power, daily Dawn quoted officials here as saying.The report said that Pakistan has urged the NSG, comprising developed industrialised countries, not to single it out by providing nuclear energy to India. The nsg was apparently approached after Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission chairman Pervez Butt requested President Pervez Musharraf to formally seek a nuclear deal from the West to meet the country’s projected 8,800 MW electricity needs over the next 25 years.Though revelations around the disgraced nuclear scientist A Q Khan made Pakistan diffident initially to approach the US, Islamabad has in recent weeks stepped up its campaign to secure advanced nuclear technology. ‘‘Denying Pakistan a nuclear package like that of India is a clear discrimination against a friend,’’ the newspaper quoted an official as saying. Musharraf has warned the West that there would be ‘‘no stability’’ in the region if India continued to be favoured and Pakistan ignored, despite its being a strong ally of the international community against terrorism.Pakistan wants 13 nuclear power plants against India’s request for six, and has given the details of its requirements to the US and some Western countries. ‘‘The government has told the US and the Western countries that Pakistan deserves a nuclear deal because it is a mature nuclear operator, having 33 years experience of safety,’’ the official said. Pakistan further said the whole programme would be placed under the supervision of the UN nuclear watchdog.The newspaper also quoted Pakistan officials as saying that following the US, the UK, Canada and France had offered deals to India that should also be offered to Pakistan, failing which Islamabad would be constrained to look elsewhere to meet its energy needs.Pakistanis arrest Taliban spokesmanw ISLAMABAD: The main spokesman for Afghanistan's Taliban insurgents, Abdul Latif Hakimi, was arrested in Pakistan on Tuesday, the Pakistani government said.Pakistani Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed said Hakimi was arrested in Baluchistan province, which borders Afghanistan. “We're interrogating him and we expect to get some important information from him,” he said. Asked if Hakimi would be handed over to the United States, as have other Taliban and Al Qaeda militants arrested in Pakistan, Ahmed said: “First we will interrogate him and then we will see.”In Washington, a US official who spoke on condition of anonymity, called the arrest “a significant, symbolic capture”.Afghan and US officials have long suspected Hakimi was in Pakistan. In June, the former US ambassador to Afghanistan, Zalmay Khalilzad, publicly questioned Pakistan's inability to find him and other Taliban figures. Hakimi often made outlandish claims for the Taliban fighters, saying they had inflicted huge casualties on US and Afghan government troops. But his information was also, at times, very accurate. REUTERS
