BERLIN, Feb 9: Foreign Minister Khurshid Kasuri said on Monday that Pakistan would cooperate with the UN nuclear agency in a probe over the selling of nuclear expertise.

Speaking to reporters after meeting his German counterpart Joschka Fischer here, he said Islamabad launched the proliferation probe despite huge public criticism. "When we started investigating we were under tremendous pressure. We did not spare anybody. Dr Khan named other people," he added.

"Despite his hero status we did not spare him. We told him he would have to cooperate or there would be a trial. We made him go on television." He said that among names given by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the Iranian government as potentially involved were two Pakistanis, three Germans, one Dutch national and a Sri Lankan based in Dubai.

Mr Kasuri said the list of those investigated was then enlarged to 11, of whom three were "let off." He did not say who. "We will share all this information with the IAEA," he went on. "The IAEA is not an investigative body.

"The IAEA has a certain role, and we will do all we can to support the IAEA in that role. Any information that we have got which bears on Iran or Libya or terror, we will cooperate fully."

The foreign minister said measures now in place would prevent a repeat of the scandal. "Our (nuclear) programme was covert, clandestine. When we became open and a declared nuclear power, we instituted command and control systems. -AFP