The Hindu : International : ``Khan gave nuclear secrets to Iran''

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Feb 14, 2005

International

International

``Khan gave nuclear secrets to Iran''

By Hasan Suroor

LONDON, FEB. 13. An investigation by Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence Agency (ISI) is reported to have "confirmed" that the controversial scientist, A.Q. Khan, provided nuclear expertise and equipment to Iran, according to a British newspaper.

An Islamabad-datelined report in The Sunday Telegraph claimed that Pakistan also "admitted" Dr. Khan's role in Iran's nuclear programme during talks in Brussels last month between European Union officials and "senior'' Ministers from India and Pakistan.

"The EU officials were told that cooperation between Teheran and Dr. Khan, 68, and associates from his Khan Research Laboratories began in the mid-1990s and included more than a dozen meetings over several years," the report said. The newspaper claimed that according to details of an ISI investigation, which had been "disclosed" to it, Dr. Khan "sold nuclear codes, materials, components and plans that left his `signature' at the core of Iranian nuclear programme." It said the Pakistani investigators had told the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which is pressing Iran to wind up its allegedly "secret" nuclear plans, that centrifuge drawings by Iran "closely resemble the design of the first-generation Pakistan-1 centrifuge.''

Dr. Khan, once hailed as a hero in Pakistan and regarded as the "father'' of its nuclear programme, was arrested in November 2003 after allegations that he ran an international network smuggling nuclear secrets and components.

According to the news report, ISI investigators found that Dr. Khan also helped Iran set up a "secret" procurement network involving companies and middlemen around the world. This, it said, would increase American pressure on Islamabad to allow the CIA to question Khan.

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