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Pakistan seeks nuclear power plants from US
ISLAMABAD, July 07 : Pakistan is engaged in intense negotiations with the United States for the acquisition of nuclear power plants to meet its energy requirements but hitherto, no positive indication has been received from Washington which shows the Bush administration’s inclination in this regard.
For the last couple of months, Islamabad has been discussing with the United States, its energy requirements and it has been demanding at least two nuclear power plants for the civilian purposes, media report said.
These nuclear power plants, the Pakistani authorities believe, could be of great help to meet the country’s energy requirements through the power generation up till 2010. The response from the United States so far was not positive but it has been decided by the two sides to continue with the discussions in this regard.
A source said the provision of nuclear power plants was discussed in detail during the recent visit of US Secretary of State, Dr Condoleezza Rice to Pakistan.
He said the top energy experts and officials from the relevant ministries gave her a detailed briefing on Pakistan’s energy requirements which were constantly on rise and in order to meet them adequately, she was told, Islamabad would have to resort to the acquisition of energy resources from abroad.
Pakistan also wants the United States to drop its opposition to the gas pipeline from Iran but despite the intense diplomatic efforts which have been constantly on, the world’s sole super power is strongly opposing the very idea.
Instead, the sources said, the Bush administration wanted Islamabad to opt for other gas pipelines such as one from Qatar and another from Turkmenistan via Afghanistan.
They said that like Pakistan, India was also negotiating with the United States its energy requirements and it also wanted the acquisition of nuclear power plants.
However, they said that the US response vis-à-vis the extension of nuclear power plants to India was also unclear and nothing could be said yet as to what would be the outcome of talks between the two nations in this regard.