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20 January 2004
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Tuesday
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27 Ziqa'ad 1424
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'North Korea, Libya may have European N-design'
AMSTERDAM, Jan 19: Two Dutch ministers said on Monday there were "indications" North Korea and Libya may have acquired potentially arms-related nuclear technology developed in Europe that Pakistan and Iran are known to possess.
In November, Vienna-based Western diplomats said the International Atomic Energy Agency was investigating whether designs for uranium enrichment centrifuges developed by the Dutch unit of Urenco, which Tehran said it acquired from a middleman in the 1980s, came from inside Pakistan.
The ministers also confirmed what Western diplomats have said anonymously - that the technology, developed by the British-Dutch-German Urenco consortium, may have found its way into Libya and North Korea.
"It is not clear to the government how Iran could have got hold of this technology," Foreign Minister Bernard Bot and Economic Affairs Minister Laurens-Jan Brinkhorst said in reply to questions from a Dutch MP.
"There are indications now that, in addition to (Iran and Pakistan), North Korea and Libya also possess this type of technology," they wrote.-Reuters
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