London: Branding Pakistan as a "rogue state", External Affairs Minister Yashwant Sinha has said that it should be included in US President George W Bush's "axis of evil".

Pakistan was a "sham" Democracy that had been caught red-handed proliferating nuclear bomb technology, exporting terrorism and trafficking drugs, Sinha said in an interview published in 'The Independent' daily on December 12.

"While Bush may have the idea that there are three members of the axis of evil (North Korea, Iran and Iraq), one may conclude that one has been left out: Pakistan," he said.

Sinha said Pakistan was continuing to promote cross-border terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir, and India "will continue to fight with what might we have, the menaces of cross-border terrorism. Pakistan is a difficult country and we will have to deal with them".

Sinha said the criteria by which President Bush used to brand Iraq, Iran and North Korea as paid-up members of the axis of evil ought to include Islamabad as well.

"Pakistan is the single most deserving" of being branded an outlaw state, he said.

Sinha said Pakistan had exported Taleban ideology into Afghanistan and after the US- led war "most of the remaining al-Qaida had come back to hide in Pakistan".

Pakistan is also a conduit for heroin smuggled from its own North West frontier, the semi-autonomous region, he said.

PTI