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Payvand's Iran News ...

8/10/04
Pakistan Limits Cooperation with IAEA on Iran
Source: Radio Farda Newsroom

Pakistan foreign minister said Pakistan will not allow UN to inspect its nuclear facilities as part of its probe on Iran's nuclear program.

August 9, 2004 - Inspection of Pakistan's nuclear facilities as a part of the UN probe into Iran's nuclear program is out of question, Pakistani foreign minister Khorshid Mahmud Kasuri, who is in Tehran on a two-day visit, said on Monday during a joint press conference with foreign minister Kamal Kharrazi.

Pakistan is a responsible member of the international community. We have been cooperating with the IAEA and sharing information, he said. Of course we will cooperate and are cooperating, but as far as inspections of Pakistan are concerned, that is out of the question. We are not a signatory of the NPT, he added.

Cooperation of Pakistan can potentially help UN inspectors to verify the Islamic officials claim that traces of highly enriched uranium found by the UN International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors in several nuclear facilities in Iran were from centrifuge equipment bought on the black market through father of Pakistan nuclear bomb Abdul Qadeer Khan.

Pakistani foreign minister did not say how his country would help the International Atomic Energy Agency's inspections, but defended Pakistan's own nuclear weapons program.

Foreign minister Kharrazi said the US did not have any reason to press IAEA's board of governors in their meeting next September to refer Iran's nuclear program to the UN Security Council for imposing sanctions.

Only the Americans say Iran's case will be referred to the Security Council, but to send Iran's case to the Security Council they need reasons and we have to have committed violations, Kharrazi said.

http://www.payvand.com/news/04/aug/1094.html