ISLAMABAD, 11 March 2005 — Pakistan’s disgraced nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan gave Iran centrifuges, Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed admitted yesterday, but insisted the government had nothing to do with this.
It was the first time the Pakistani government has admitted that Qadeer actually gave material to Iran, though they have said in the past that his criminal group sold technology and blueprints to several countries.
“Dr. Abdul Qadeer gave some centrifuges to Iran,” Sheikh Rashid told The Associated Press in a telephone interview. “He helped Iran in his personal capacity, and the Pakistan government had nothing to do with it.”
Sheikh Rashid originally made the comments at a seminar on “Political Reconciliation — Need of The Hour” organized by Mir Khalilur Rehman Memorial Society here, in which he stuck by Pakistan’s insistence that despite his crimes, Qadeer would never be handed over to a third country for prosecution.
“I support the idea that the government should tell the people about these sensitive matters,” Sheikh Rashid said in a speech at the seminar. “I am not a spokesman for a cowardly nation. Yes, we supplied Iran the centrifuge system. Yes, Dr. Qadeer gave Iran this technology. But we are not going to hand over Dr. Qadeer to any one. We will not.”
Iran insists it intends to use enriched uranium only in power stations, but the United States argues that Iran is making fuel for atomic warheads.
Britain, France and Germany are leading European diplomatic efforts to persuade Iran to scrap uranium enrichment. Iran has frozen most of its enrichment program as a confidence-building measure but has said the freeze would be short-lived.
Qadeer, revered in Pakistan as the man who secured for Pakistan the nuclear arms capability to balance that of nuclear armed neighbor and rival India, admitted to proliferating nuclear materials last year and made a televised apology to the nation.
The scandal was a severe embarrassment for Pakistan, the only Muslim state currently known to have nuclear weapons, and raised fears that weapons of mass destruction could fall into the hands of militants or rogue states.
Qadeer remains under close guard at his home in Islamabad, although authorities deny he is under house arrest and have refused to allow experts from the UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, to question him.
— Additional input from agencies
