ISLAMABAD: Pakistan on Sunday rubbished media reports of an alleged "covert deal between Islamabad and Beijing to expand potential bio-warfare capabilities", describing it as a "politically motivated" and a "fake story".
"It is a politically motivated and fake story, composed of distortion of facts and fabrications that quote anonymous sources," Foreign Office spokesperson Aisha Farooqui said in response to a media question about the Klaxon story on China's Wuhan Lab conducting alleged covert operations in Pakistan.
She asserted that there is nothing secret about the Bio-Safety Level-3 (BSL-3) Laboratory of Pakistan referred to in the report. "Pakistan has been sharing information about the facility with the States Parties to the Biological and Toxins Weapons Convention (BTWC) in its submission of Confidence Building Measures," she said.
She added that the facility is meant for diagnostic and protective system improvement by Research and Development (R&D) on emerging health threats, surveillance and disease outbreak investigation.
She said that Pakistan strictly abides by its BTWC obligations and has been one of the most vocal supporters for a strong verification mechanism to ensure full compliance by the States Parties to the Convention.
"The attempt to cast aspersions about the facility is particularly absurd against the backdrop of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has highlighted the need for better preparedness in the areas of disease surveillance and control and international collaborations in that regard, consistent with Article X of BTWC," the spokesperson added.
The report, citing multiple intelligence sources, claimed that as part of a broader offensive against India and Western rivals, Pakistan and China have entered a secret three-year agreement to expand potential bio-warfare capabilities, including several research projects related to the deadly agent anthrax.
It further claimed that the lab has signed the covert deal with Pakistan military's Defence Science and Technology Organization (DESTO), to collaborate research in "emerging infectious diseases" and advance studies on the biological control of transmitted diseases.
"China's keen interest in the project is driven chiefly by its agenda to engage Pakistan against India and to conduct potentially dangerous experiments on foreign soil, without subjecting its own land and people to risk," the report quoted an unnamed security expert.
It further claimed that the Wuhan Lab has provided Pakistan with reagents for Bacillus Thuringiensis. It was also providing "extensive training on the manipulation of pathogens and bio-informatics" to Pakistani scientists "to help Pakistan develop its own virus collection database".
APP adds: Meanwhile, the Embassy of China in Pakistan Sunday strongly opposed the fabricated Klaxon's story about China-Pakistan joint research on biological weapon.
"It is totally irresponsible, vicious-intentioned to smear China and Sino-Pak relations. As a responsible nation, China always lives up to its obligations to BWC, (Biological Weapons Convention)," the Chinese embassy posted on its twitter account.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2020
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