"...If under a PPP government the IAEA makes a request to us to give them access to A Q Khan, we certainly will do that because the People's Party will not cover up or collude in the cover up of proliferation activities," Bhutto said at the Middle East Institute.

She was asked to clarify her earlier remarks that while the Pakistan People's Party would not grant the West access to Khan, it would give allow the IAEA, the UN atomic watchdog, to question him.

The Pervez Musharraf's regime has refused to grant access to the US, which is eager to question Khan, the father of Pakistan's nuclear bomb, after he admitted to passing atomic secrets to Libya, Iran and North Korea in February 2004.

Bhutto's statement drew an angry response from the government as well opposition parties including Islamist alliance Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal and Imran Khan's Tehrik-e-Insasf, which dubbed it as against national interest.

The PPP leader stressed that the world must be sent a message that Pakistan is not a "rogue" nation involved in the peddling of nuclear technology.