ISLAMABAD, Feb 19 - Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi Thursday said his country was not going to hand over an alleged deputy of Pakistan's disgraced nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khah to anyone as investigations were still in progress.
"No, there is no move to hand him over to anybody and he is still detained by us," Badawi told a press conference in Islamabad when asked if Buhary Syed Abu Tahir was being handed over to the United States.
Tahir has been named by US President George W. Bush as "deputy" to Khan in an international nuclear trafficking ring.
"Our... intelligence people like to speak and continue to talk to him. Obviously, there are lot of things we would like to know from him," Badawi said.
Tahir told Malaysian police last year that Khan sold nuclear centrifuge parts to Iran in the mid-1990s and sent enriched uranium to Libya in 2001.
Khan, a disgraced one-time national hero credited with making Pakistan a nuclear power, confessed in February 2004 to leaking nuclear secrets. He was later pardoned by President Pervez Musharraf.
On the nuclear row between Iran and the United States, Badawi said, "We do not want to see Iraq's situation repeated in Iran."
The United States accuses Iran of seeking to build nuclear weapons. Tehran has vehemently denied the charges, arguing that its atomic activities are solely for peaceful purposes.
Last month Bush said he could not rule out using force if Tehran failed to rein in its nuclear plans, and US Vice President Dick Cheney said Iran was "right at the top of the list" of global troublespots.
Badawi said that any differences between Iran and the United States "should be resolved through diplomatic channel."
- AFP/zs
