March, 14 2005	Monday	03 Safar 1426

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ISLAMABAD, March 13: Pakistan on Sunday categorically denied reports that it would send components of used centrifuge to the International Atomic Energy Agency in connection with an investigation into Iran’s nuclear programme.

“This is a baseless story,” foreign ministry spokesman Jalil Abbas Jilani commented about reports by foreign news agencies that said the UN nuclear watchdog would analyse these centrifuge parts to determine whether uranium contamination found in Iran came from imported equipment.

The reports by Reuters and AFP quoted unidentified diplomats in Vienna as their sources, one of them saying Pakistan’s change of heart was partly in response to US pressure.

“Pakistan has been cooperating with the IAEA and would continue to do so,” Mr Jilani told Dawn when asked for Islamabad’s comment on the reports. “However, there is no truth in the report,” he said.

The diplomats were quoted in the reports as saying that Pakistan would soon hand over used centrifuge components to the UN agency, which would analyse them in the hope of solving a key mystery surrounding Iran’s atomic programme.

One of the diplomats familiar with a UN investigation of Iran’s nuclear programme said the centrifuge parts might “hold the crucial fingerprints, the DNA of the uranium traces found on equipment in Iran.”

Washington says Iran’s nuclear programme is a front for developing the bomb. The IAEA has been investigating Iran for over two years. It has found no proof of atom bomb plans but has been unable to verify the programme is entirely peaceful, as Tehran says it is.

In 2003, the IAEA found traces of uranium in Iran that had been enriched to various levels, some of them close to what would be useable in weapons. This sparked fears that Tehran’s long-concealed centrifuge programme had been used to purify uranium secretly for use in atomic weapons.

Iran blamed the traces on contaminated centrifuge components it acquired second-hand from Pakistan. But Islamabad’s refusal to allow IAEA experts to take environmental samples inside the country prevented the IAEA from verifying Iran’s explanation.