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Monday, July 4, 2011

US asks Pak to ban production of ammonium nitrate used in IEDs

The United States is focusing on stopping the production of ammonium nitrate in Pakistan and hopes that a meeting in Islamabad this week would lead to a ban on the substance, Special Envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan Marc Grossman has said.

Ammonium nitrate, a popular fertilizer, is used for making improvised explosive devices (IEDs).

Address Pakistani physicians in a convention in St. Louis, Missouri, Grossman noted that the IEDs had killed thousands of people in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

"We hope that the July 5 meeting in Islamabad will deal with this problem once and for all," The Dawn quoted Grossman, as saying.

Robert P. Casey, a member of the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told more than 2,500 Pakistani physicians attending the convention that they should use their influence to convince Pakistan to make a law banning ammonium nitrate.

Assistant Secretary of State William Brownfield will lead the US delegation to this meeting of the Strategic Dialogue Working Group on counter-terrorism and law enforcement.  ANI