ISLAMABAD: The Foreign Office Spokesperson Aisha Farooqui has trashed a news story appearing in ‘Klaxon’, an Australian news website, about China’s Wuhan Laboratory conducting alleged covert operations in Pakistan as ‘a politically motivated and fake story, composed of distortion of facts and fabrications that quote anonymous sources’.

In response to a media question about the Klaxon story, the Foreign Office Spokesperson in a statement said that there was 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. 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,” Spokesperson Aisha Farooqui added.

The spokesperson reiterated that Pakistan "strictly abides" by its BTWC commitments and has been "one of the most vocal supporters" for a strong verification mechanism to ensure full compliance by states complying with 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 maintained.

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.

The Klaxon, an Australian publication, had published an "investigative" piece on July 23, alleging that China's Wuhan Lab was running secret operations in Pakistan under a covert deal with the Defence Science and Technology Organisation (DESTO).

The story claimed that 'anthrax-like pathogens' are being developed as potential biological warfare. The reported was based on "intelligence sources". NNI