VIENNA, July 9: Some 20 companies across the world have illicitly sold countries nuclear technology which can be used to make weapons of mass destruction, a spokesman for the UN nuclear watchdog said here on Friday.

"There are 20 companies that have been implicated, in all the world's regions from North America to Europe, Africa and Asia, in supplying the black market," International Atomic Energy Agency spokesman Mark Gwozdecky told AFP.

He declined to name the companies involved but said Libya and Iran counted among the countries who illicitly received nuclear technology. "Right now we know that Iran and Libya were recipients."

Gwozdecky said the IAEA came across the information during a probe into the nuclear black market that it began one year ago following its investigations into Iran's suspect nuclear power programme.

"But we made the latest breakthrough after we began investigating the Libyan nuclear programme in late December," he added. Libya in December surprised the world by denouncing the quest for weapons of mass destruction and opening the country's facilities to the IAEA, a move that has brought the pariah nation back into the international fold.

Gwozdecky said a "vast variety" of nuclear technology had changed hands, including "material to build uranium enrichment programmes and weapons designs and drawings that were given to Libya."

He said in some cases the IAEA's information about the black market was supplied by governments, but in those cases where it was obtained otherwise the agency would inform national authorities of its information. "There is no evidence to suggest that any single government was involved," he added. -AFP