Pakistan denies it sending centrifuges to IAEA for testing

South Asia - AFP ^ | Sun, Mar 13, 2005 | South Asia - AFP

[Righty_McRight]

ISLAMABAD (AFP) - Pakistan has denied reports that it was to send used centrifuge parts to the UN atomic agency to trace the origin of highly enriched uranium contamination found in Iran (news - web sites).

We are not providing any centrifuges," Pakistan's foreign ministry spokesman Jalil Abbas Jilani told AFP on Monday. "These are entirely baseless reports."

Diplomats in Vienna Sunday told AFP Pakistan was sending used centrifuge parts to the UN atomic agency to help it figure out the origin of highly enriched uranium contamination found in Iran.

Pakistan last week admitted that Abdul Qadeer Khan, the disgraced scientist who fathered the country's nuclear weapons program, had sold Iran centrifuges, which are used to enrich uranium into what can be either fuel for nuclear power plants or the explosive core of atom bombs.

"The centrifuge parts will be sent to the International Atomic Agency Agency laboratory (IAEA) in Seibersdorf" near Vienna, which will analyze and compare them with centrifuge components Khan sold to Iran, a Western diplomat close to the IAEA told AFP.

The IAEA is investigating contamination by microscopic particles of highly enriched uranium (HEU) found in Iran at a workshop in Tehran, at a pilot enrichment plant at Natanz and at other sites where there were centrifuges.

Iran, which says its nuclear program is for the peaceful purpose of making electricity, claims the HEU-contaminated equipment came from imported machinery and not from enrichment activities in Iran