India wants transparency on A.Q. Khan issue for a better tomorrow for the world

London, April 1 (ANI): Ahead of the G-20 economic summit, India on Wednesday said that there was a need for more transparency on the Pakistan's nuclear scientist A.Q. Khan issue.

Addressing the media, Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon here said that there was a need for the international community to work together to prevent any future possibility of recurrence of nuclear technology proliferation.

"On the A.Q. Khan network, we feel that there is a need for much more transparency. Not only about what happened in the past but to enable us to be certain that nothing like that will happen again. And to be sure that nuclear materials technology equipment are all not just secure today, but will always be secure," said Shivshankar Menon.

Menon stressed that the transparency over Khan's issue was needed also to ensure the nuclear technology remained in safe hands, not just today but also in future, and the world community should reflect a united approach on such a matter.

"This is very important because the danger really, of networks, like the A.Q. Khan network that they blur the line between what is official, what is not official, what is private and that is really worrying part for us. So it's very important. So whether it is people being out, free to continue with these activities, or whether it's putting in place systems to prevent a recurrence of this sort of proliferation, we feel it's very important that the international community must work together," Menon said.

"I'd be surprised if Pakistan wasn't mentioned at the sidelines of the summit, because it is an issue, an issue not only for us, but an issue really for the world and the US has just unveiled its new comprehensive strategy to deal with Afghanistan and Pakistan. So I think its natural that this will be a topic," Menon added.

Deliberating about the Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh's meet with his British counterpart earlier in the day ahead of the G-20 economic summit, Menon said that both the leaders met at 1.30 p.m. on Wednesday and spent about little more than an hour together.

" Most of the conversation was really about the global economic crisis, financial crisis and what the G-20 meeting could do about it. Both of them expressed satisfaction with the way that preparations have been going, and that work has been done before the actual summit, the leader's meeting," said Menon informed.

On the Government of India's steps to shield the country from getting over influenced from the global financial crisis, Menon said: "Stimulus packages that we have implemented already and the steps we are taking to increase investment in infrastructure, designed to do is really to compensate for the deterioration in the external environment so I would characterize the Indian economy as an economy that is capable of taking care of itself and is continuing to maintain a positive growth and therefore is part of the solution to the problem rather that part of the problem itself.

"We don't intend to approach the IMF, we don't feel the need to, but we do feel that it does need to be augmented, its resources need to be augmented to help the other developing countries who have been very hard hit by the crisis." By Smita Prakash (ANI)