VIENNA, Aug 20: The UN nuclear watchdog is to meet here next week with Pakistani officials as part of its efforts to determine if Iran was using smuggled Pakistani equipment to make enriched uranium that could be used for atom bombs, diplomats said on Saturday.

The IAEA has concluded that “the highly enriched uranium appears to emanate from Pakistan,” from the imported equipment and not from Iranian enrichment work, a Western diplomat close to the IAEA said.

The diplomat said on Saturday that a “Pakistani delegation is coming to Vienna to begin talks on Monday with IAEA safeguards officials to review the IAEA findings.”

The IAEA’s ruling out that Iran was doing work that could have produced weapons-grade uranium “will be seen by those in favour of Iran as another checkmark in their column” to back up Tehran’s rebuttals of US charges that the Islamic Republic is secretly developing nuclear weapons, the diplomat said

Pakistan had in May sent centrifuge parts to the watchdog International Atomic Energy Agency at its headquarters in Vienna to enable the IAEA to compare microscopic traces of uranium on them with that on equipment in Iran believed to have been smuggled in from Pakistan.

The IAEA has since February 2003 been investigating US charges that the Islamic Republic, which says its nuclear programme is a peaceful effort to generate electricity, has a covert weapons programme.

The enriched uranium contamination issue was a main sticking point in the investigation, although others still remain.

The diplomat said the talks with the Pakistanis were part of a review of the IAEA finding that will later in the month also involve independent experts reviewing if the agency’s work is correct.

IAEA spokesman Mark Gwozedecky refused to comment on details but said: “The corroboration process continues and we hope to report on the contamination issue” in a September report to the IAEA board of governors.—AFP