'US concerned about Pak N-arsenal safety'

Washington, Nov 20: The United States has an interest in seeing that Pakistan's nuclear arsenal is secure, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said.

''Ultimately, the major responsibility for that falls on the Pakistani Government. They have made public comments to the effect that the arsenal is secure, that they have taken a number of different steps to ensure their safety, '' Mr McCormack said.

He made these observation yesterday in reply to a question regarding safety of Pakistan's nuclear arsenal and the steps the US intends to take to prevent Pakistani nuclear weapons falling into the wrong hands.

The New York Times had reported on Saturday that over the past six years, the Bush administration has spent almost 100 million dollars on a highly classified programme to help Pakistan's president Pervez Musharraf secure his country's nuclear weapons.

The newspaper said a raft of equipment from helicopters to night-vision goggles to nuclear detection equipment was given to Pakistan to help secure its nuclear material, its warheads, and the laboratories that were the site of the worst known case of nuclear proliferation in the atomic age.

UNI