01 September 2004	Wednesday	15 Rajab 1425

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WASHINGTON, Aug 31: The pressure on Pakistan to allow international observers to visit its nuclear sites may increase when the International Atomic Energy Agency releases a report on Iran's programme on Sept 13.

The US media, quoting sources at the IAEA headquarters in Vienna, reported on Tuesday that Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan will "feature prominently" in the report, which reviews the development of Iran's nuclear program.

The Washington Post said the IAEA was conducting forensic analysis of warhead designs Dr Khan is supposed to have provided to Iran, Libya and North Korea. IAEA experts have already visited Libya's former nuclear sites to determine whether the drawings Dr Khan provided were copied or shared with other countries.

The designs were Chinese in origin, obtained by Pakistan and then sold by Dr Khan to other countries, the Post said. Other US newspapers said the IAEA also had expressed frustration with the level of cooperation by Pakistan.

In a veiled reference to Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan and Pakistan, the agency wrote that its ability "to derive a credible assessment . . . would benefit greatly from the provision of additional information, including from the provider of the weapons design".

The agency also noted that Pakistan had refused to allow inspectors to take samples at Pakistani laboratories that could help confirm where Libya and Iran got their nuclear materials. The Pakistanis have insisted on conducting their own tests, without outside observers, and then sharing data with the IAEA, the report said.

"This investigation is continuing but can only be completed if the agency is permitted to take independent swipe samples at locations where the enriched uranium contamination may have originated," the IAEA wrote.

Reports in the US media say that Libya has offered conflicting information about whether North Korea or Pakistan supplied uranium for its nuclear weapons program. The IAEA has been unable to account for some equipment that could be used to make a bomb, the IAEA said.

IAEA inspectors said efforts to resolve one of the biggest mysteries about Libya's program were complicated by statements from one Libyan, who said the uranium came from North Korea, and from another who pointed the finger at Dr Khan, who, he said, supplied much of Libya's nuclear infrastructure.

The report reflects the difficulty its inspectors are having as they try to unravel the alleged Pakistani black market that supplied Libya and Iran, and to understand the extent of international trafficking in nuclear materials.

In Washington, a Bush administration official familiar with the report told the Post the source for the North Korea claim was credible, but there was nothing else to corroborate the story.

Throughout the IAEA report, which was written for presentation at the agency's Sept 13 board meeting, Libya is praised for providing inspectors with access to facilities and responses to inquiries.

But the report notes that Libya has failed to account for sophisticated enrichment technology that could have been stolen, hidden or lost, and also notes that some of Libya's responses have not been borne out by test results and soil samples.

The IAEA has been active in Libya since the country's leader, Muammar Qadhafi, agreed to give up his biological, chemical and nuclear weapons programs in December last year.

That concession was part of a deal that ended years of sanctions against the country for its role in the 1988 bombing of a Pan Am jet that killed 270 people in Lockerbie, Scotland.

Libya's decision exposed the so-called Khan network of nuclear proliferators, and the IAEA believes that he and a network of middlemen in 20 countries supplied Libya and Iran with equipment and technology for enriching uranium.

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