Islamabad: Pakistan yesterday (Jan 31,2007) said it wouldnot hand over disgraced nuclear scientist A Q Khan for questioning toWashington despite an American bill which could force Pakistan to surrender himand hoped the Bush administration would intervene to make the final legislationmore balanced.

Speaking to reporters at the weekly briefing, Foreign Office spokeswomanTasneem Aslam said USqueries should be forwarded to the Government which would investigate andrespond.

"If there are any questions, they should be forwarded to government of Pakistan.We will investigate and respond", she said.

The proposed law called the Nuclear Black Market Counter Terrorism Act,recently passed by the US House of Representatives, requires the President tosubmit a report identifying any country or person connected with transactionswith the nuclear proliferation network that supplied Libya,Iran, North Korea within 90 days of itsenactment.

Another provision of the proposed law, which if enacted, could force Pakistanto hand over Khan, says the President will send to Congressional committees adescription of the extent a country is cooperating with the US to stopproliferation, including the degree to which the it has satisfied requests forinformation and grant of access to key persons involved in proliferation.

Emphasising that Pakistanwas a 'nuclear state, Aslam said, "The Senate is yet to come up with itsown version. The two versions will be discussed in the conference stage."Khan is currently held under house arrest here after he confessed ofproliferating nuclear technology to Iran,North Korea and Libya.