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Pakistan rejects US press report Khan offered Iran nuclear material in 1987

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan on Sunday dismissed a report in the Washington Post that international investigators have produced evidence about a secret meeting between Iranian officials and associates of Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan, founder of the country’s nuclear programme.

“The report is unfounded and no evidence has been produced to Pakistan about any meeting,” the Foreign Office spokesman said in a statement, state-run television reported. He said there is no new evidence in the report.

The spokesman said that Pakistan’s investigations into the alleged transfer of nuclear technology were satisfactory and that the world community accepted this.

According to the Post report, the secret meeting in Dubai in 1987 resulted in a written offer to supply Tehran with the makings of a nuclear weapons programme.

The meeting resulted in a five-point phased plan to furnish Iran with nuclear materials including 2,000 centrifuges and equipment for building the core of a bomb, according to the newspaper. While Iran recently told the International Atomic Energy Agency it turned down the chance to buy the more sensitive equipment required for building the core of a bomb, there is evidence the country used Khan's offer as a guide to acquire some of the pricier items elsewhere, the newspaper said.

It quoted an unnamed Western diplomat as saying the offer was the "strongest indication to date that Iran had a nuclear weapons programme, but it doesn't prove it completely".

The newspaper said much of the equipment Iran obtained could be used for peaceful purposes and is scattered throughout Iran's energy programme.

Evidence suggested, the report said, that Iran went on to buy much of the equipment and technology outlined in the offer from other sellers at cheaper prices. "Iran had its own procurement network and bought a lot of stuff," David Albright, president of the Institute for Science and International Security, told the Post. "This offer would also show that even this early on, Pakistan was willing to go the extra mile to help Iran get the bomb. Maybe Iran didn't take the offer, maybe Pakistan wanted too much money, but what's new is that Iran got a guide, and if you have a guide it's a lot easier to do." According to another report in the LA Times, AQ Khan sold nuclear warhead plans to Libya that were “more complete and detailed than previously disclosed”.

Douglas Frantz wrote in the LA Times that two Western nuclear weapons specialists who have examined the top-secret designs say “the hundreds of pages of engineering drawings and handwritten notes provide an excellent starting point for anyone trying to develop an effective atomic warhead”.

"This involved the spread of very sensitive nuclear knowledge, and it is the most serious form of proliferation," one of the specialists, who remained anonymous, was quoted as saying.

“The sale of the plans is particularly troubling to some investigators because the transaction occurred at least 18 months after US and British intelligence agencies concluded that Khan was running an international nuclear smuggling ring and identified Libya as a suspected customer, according to US officials and a British government assessment,” says the report.

The report claimed that the US administration had followed a “watch-and-wait policy” with regard to Khan’s illegal proliferation activities, allowing him to go from “a secretive procurer of technology for Pakistan's atomic weapons programme” 20 years ago to “history's biggest independent seller of nuclear weapons equipment and expertise”. “Despite knowing at least the broad outlines of Khan's activities, American intelligence agencies regularly objected to shutting down his operations. And policymakers in Washington repeatedly prioritised other strategic goals over stopping him,” says the LA Times report. agencies

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