By Muhammad Najeeb, IANS
Islamabad : Pakistan government Wednesday said it will welcome international assistance in the investigation into assassination of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, a top government official said here.
“The government is committed to a thorough and transparent investigation and is open to receiving assistance from outside,” foreign office spokesman Mohammed Sadiq told reporters.
He said visiting French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner offered help with the probe Wednesday, while the US and Britain had already told Pakistan that they would also assist in the investigation.
Bhutto’s Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) has been calling for international investigations into the killing that sparked nationwide violence with loss of billions of rupees to private and public exchequer.
The government officials had previously rejected an international inquiry. The interior ministry Saturday had said Pakistan did not require foreign help, saying that the international community “does not understand the environment” in the country.
“Today we proposed to President (Pervez) Musharraf to provide French or European experts,” Kouchner said Wednesday after a meeting the President Pervez Musharraf in Rawalpindi, where Bhutto was slain in a gun and bomb attack.
“Musharraf responded that the idea was interesting,” said the minister who also delivered a letter from French President Nicolas Sarkozy in which he expressed his country’s solidarity with Pakistan in the wake of the “horrible crime”.