NEW DELHI, Oct 24: India on Monday urged the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to take action against illegal proliferators of nuclear weapons technology such as Pakistan’s scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan.

The UN atomic watchdog should focus on the distributors of nuclear technology as much as the recipients, like Iran, said foreign secretary Shyam Saran.

“With respect to the Iran nuclear issue, we welcome Iran’s cooperation with IAEA in the accounting for previously undeclared activities,” Mr Saran told a conference in New Delhi on nuclear non-proliferation.

“... but it is important that remaining issues which involve Pakistan-based A.Q. Khan are satisfactorily clarified as well.

“We see no reason why there should be an insistence on personal interviews with Iranian scientists but an exception granted to a man who has been accused of running a global ‘nuclear Wal-Mart’,” he said.—AFP