IAEA Seeks to Inspect Pakistani Nuclear Sites

As part of its investigation into the recently exposed international nuclear smuggling network, the International Atomic Energy Agency has formally asked Pakistan to allow agency inspections of its nuclear facilities, the Pakistani newspaper The News reported today (see GSN, March 19).

The purpose of the inspections would be to recover environmental samples to help verify Iranian claims that traces of highly enriched uranium found in Iran originated in Pakistan, IAEA spokeswoman Melissa Fleming said.

She also said that the agency expects Pakistan to provide “all possible information” on the nuclear network, adding that the agency wants to learn whether terrorist groups or other countries besides Iran, Libya and North Korea, purchased Pakistani nuclear technology.

While Pakistan is not a member of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, the IAEA has asked Islamabad to “voluntarily” comply with the inspection request, Fleming said (The News/BBC Monitoring, March 26).

Meanwhile, Pakistani authorities said that businessman Aizaz Jaffery, who was arrested in January, has become the focus of an investigation into the financing of the international nuclear network, according to the Financial Times.

While Jaffery was not initially considered as a suspect, a sudden set to trips he made to the United Arab Emirates late last year raised suspicion that he might be the network’s financial manager, the Times reported. Investigators said they were examining whether the trips to Dubai were intended to shut down the financial network used to transmit funds from purchasers of Pakistani nuclear technology to Pakistan.

Jaffery also visited Iran after Pakistani authorities in late November detained three employees of the Khan Research Laboratories, Pakistan’s main nuclear weapons facility, an official said. Authorities are investigating whether the purpose of Jaffery’s trip was to learn how much information Iran had provided to the International Atomic Energy Agency about the nuclear technology it had obtained from Pakistan, the official said (Bokhari/Burnett, Financial Times, March 26).

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