PAKISTAN: Pakistan admitted yesterday that "personal ambition and greed" might have motivated some of its nuclear scientists to share sensitive technology with neighbouring Iran.
But a Foreign Ministry spokesman, Mr Masood Khan, told journalists in Islamabad that the government had never authorised the transfer of such information.
He said the Pakistani government had opened an internal investigation and was questioning a "very small number" of its nuclear scientists about the possibility of having provided Tehran with sensitive information.
President Pervez Musharraf, meanwhile, assured the US that his country was not providing technology related to nuclear weapons to either Iran or Libya, both of which have agreed to UN inspections of their nuclear activities.
"President Musharraf has assured us there are no transfers of WMD-related technologies or know-how going on at the present time," the White House press secretary, Mr Scott McClellan, told reporters in Washington on Monday.
Experts, however, said Mr McClellan's stress on the "present" indicated "vast room" for speculation and that the US was reserving its judgment on the matter.
But Mr Khan stressed that Pakistan had a strong nuclear command-and-control system and a stringent export control regime.
"Pakistan is responsible," he said. "We have taken a proactive approach and we want to get to the bottom of the matter [proliferation\]," he said.
About six weeks ago Pakistan began questioning at least two scientists from the Khan Research Laboratories, the country's main nuclear weapons research facility near Islamabad, where weapons-grade uranium is enriched.
Dr A. Q. Khan, "father" of Pakistan's nuclear bomb, after whom the facility is named, was also being questioned following clues provided by Iran, the International Atomic Energy Agency and by local and western media reports.
These alleged that some of Iran's nuclear technology, such as designs for centrifuges used for enriching uranium, might have been provided by Islamabad.
"The information that was shared with us pointed to certain individuals [nuclear scientists\] and we had to hold these debriefing sessions [with them\]," Dr Khan said in Islamabad.
"There are indications that certain individuals might have been motivated by personal ambition or greed, but let me add we have not made a final determination," he declared, warning against "jumping to conclusions".
"If there are any individuals who are found to be involved in transactions of any sort, action would be taken against them. Nobody is above the law," Dr Khan said.
For several years western intelligence claims that Pakistan had allegedly transferred nuclear technology to Iran and North Korea have embarrassed Washington, of which Islamabad is a close ally in its war against al-Qaeda, the Taliban and allied Islamic militant groups.