In an interview to Spanish weekly Tiempo, Khan added, ``This is a component of our defensive strategy. Pakistan is not an aggressor state.''

Stating that Israel had supplied India with the activating device that could enable a nuclear detonation a charge denied by India Khan said, ``Only in Israel and America can you find these devices, and we know these came from Israel.''

He likened the devices to a button on a camera that must be activated in order to take photographs.

"This acting button,'' he said, ``Israel transferred to India.''Khan said that Pakistan would never transfer nuclear weapon-related technology or components to other states.

He said that characterisations of Islamabad's nuclear weapon programme as an ``Islamic bomb'' was essentially racist, and that ``despite Israeli and Indiancooperation,'' Pakistan would not transfer its nuclear technology to other Islamic states.

Meanwhile, Indian Ambassador to United States Naresh Chandra told Defence News that, ``I don't know what he (Khan) is talking about. We (India and Israel) cooperate in trade, agriculture and conventional weaponry. But the accusation by the Foreign Minister is baseless, and nobody in the United States or the United Nations will give it any credibility.''

Gadi Baltiansky, spokesman of the Israeli Embassy in Washington, also denied Khan's charges of Israeli-Indian collaboration in making a nuclear bomb, but Gary Milhollin, director of the Wisconsin University Project on nuclear arms control, said ``it is plausible''.

US acting Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Affairs John Holum said he had no information to lend credence to Khan's accusations.

Milhollin, however, said: ``If he is talking about krytrons, it is quite possible those came from the United States, since Israel smuggledover 800 of these devices out of California in the early 1980's.'' Krytrons are tiny electronic switches used to provide a surge of electricity that detonates the high explosive of a nuclear weapon.

He said that 810 krytrons were shipped to the Israeli Government between 1979 and 1983 for defence work. Following demarches from Washington, the Israeli defence ministry returned only 469 of the detonators.

Khan also said he has information that India is planning another underground test in early July.