Pak hand in Iran N-plan: UN body

The latest disclosure about Iran came as the UN group, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), reported that Iran had only partially complied with demands to open its nuclear programme to scrutiny.

The IAEA, in a confidential report, noted that Iran had apparently attempted to sanitize its nuclear facilities at Kalaye Electric Co, before granting IAEA inspectors access to the site this summer. ‘‘Considerable modifications were observed,’’ the IAEA said of the Kalaye site.

Over the past 18 months, Iran has begun processing and enriching uranium, as well as on a separate reactor that can be used in plutonium production. Iran’s disclosures about its nuclear suppliers were part of an apparent attempt to allay concerns about its nuclear intentions.

In a new attempt to explain the enriched uranium found at Natanz, Iran has told IAEA officials the uranium came into the country on equipment purchased from another country — specifically, on metal machine parts used in gas centrifuges.

The tainted equipment was from a type of centrifuge acquired by Pakistani scientists in the 1970s and used in Pakistan’s domestic nuclear programme, two officials familiar with the findings said. One of only a handful of countries that remain outside the Nuclear NPT, Pakistan is not bound by international restrictions on the export of nuclear technology.

The possibility that Pakistan could be implicated in Iran’s programme presents a diplomatic challenge to the US administration, which has been reluctant to criticise Pakistan. The Bush administration declined comment on the IAEA’s findings.

‘‘They (the Iranians) have not been forthcoming about nuclear programmes, and that’s been of great concern to us,’’ said State Department deputy spokesman Philip Reeker. (LAT-WP)