TONY EASTLEY: The ALP's decision to overturn the ban on selling uranium to India has drawn a strong reaction from its neighbour, Pakistan.

Pakistan's high commissioner to Australia Abdul Malik Abdullah says if Australia is willing to export uranium to India then it should be open to selling it to Pakistan as well.

He says it would be discriminatory for the Government to refuse any future requests for uranium from Pakistan.

The high commissioner is speaking to our reporter Stephen Dziedzic.

ABDUL MALIK ABDULLAH: To me the position that Australia had taken earlier on had put Australia at a high moral ground. Now if after ALP's decision if the Australian Government is going to change the policy, all we would like to have is an equitable and non-discriminatory decision.

If Australia is going to lift the ban on a country which has not signed NPT, it is of hoped it will also applied to Pakistan the same way.

STEPHEN DZIEDZIC: So you believe that Australia should now also export uranium to Pakistan as well as India?

ABDUL MALIK ABDULLAH: As of now Pakistan has not made any request about procurement of uranium from Australia but nonetheless Australia remains largest producer of uranium in the world and Pakistan is being an energy deficient country is also extending its civil nuclear power program and in the future that need might arise.

In that case we will hope that we will also be treated at par with other non-NPT signatories.

STEPHEN DZIEDZIC: But 10 other countries have already signed bilateral or will sign bilateral agreements with India. So far only one does so with Pakistan, that is China, and given the fact that Pakistan is a far more unstable country than India, is it reasonable to ask Australia to export uranium to there?

ABDUL MALIK ABDULLAH: The question is, why Pakistan should be considered unstable. Pakistan is playing the front line state role in the war against terrorism. Because of that war, if Pakistan is in a difficult situation, should Pakistan be meted out a treatment which is discriminatory?

STEPHEN DZIEDZIC: Analysts say that the AQ Khan affair still hangs heavy over Pakistan. They say that there is no guarantee that the very loose controls over nuclear infrastructure that led to that scandal have now been cleaned up. Given that's the case, is it reasonable to ask the ALP to change its policy?

ABDUL MALIK ABDULLAH: I would like to remind those people that in the nuclear summit of last year in Washington it was president Obama who had in his best conscience, clearly stated that nuclear safeguards are the command and control system which Pakistan has put in place to safeguard its nuclear assets, the US government and US administration is fully satisfied with it.

As far as AQ Khan affair is concerned, that was eight years ago, eight or nine years ago. My question is, how long the international community is going to beat Pakistan with the AQ Khan stick? Has there been any incident in the meanwhile which substantiates these allegations? No.

As far as our nuclear, civilian nuclear program is concerned it has remained under the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) safeguards and there has not been even a single complaint by the IAEA about our civil nuclear energy generation program. We have fully abided by that.

TONY EASTLEY: Pakistan's high commissioner to Australia Abdul Malik Abdullah speaking to our reporter Stephen Dziedzic.