Authorities have detained a key aide to the father of Pakistan's atom bomb for questioning as they investigate reports of the possible transfer of nuclear technology to Iran, officials said today.
Pakistan has questioned Mr Abdul Qadeer Khan, revered as a national hero for developing the nuclear device, and several of his colleagues in recent weeks after a UN nuclear agency began a probe into possible links between the Pakistani and Iranian nuclear programmes.
A senior government official said Mr Islam-ul-Haq, Mr Khan's principal secretary, was detained for questioning on Saturday evening in Islamabad.
"He was rounded up in connection with the probe of the Iranian nuclear programme," said the official, who asked not to be named.
Pakistan, a key ally in the US-led war on terror, says some of its scientists may have been driven by "personal ambition or greed" to export technology to Iran but denies the government itself was ever involved in such technology transfer.
The detention of Mr Haq came hours after President Pervez Musharraf said Pakistan faced serious accusations of spreading terrorism and nuclear technology.
"Our nuclear and missile power is for the defence of Pakistan," Mr Musharraf told a noisy parliament session yesterday.
"But we have to assure the world that we are a responsible nation and we will not allow proliferation of nuclear weapons."
Mr Haq, a former army official, was serving as a director at the Khan Research Laboratories (KRL), the country's top uranium enrichment laboratory, set up by Khan in 1970s near Islamabad.
Pakistani intelligence officials questioned at least three scientists working with KRL last month after diplomats in Vienna said the International Atomic Energy Agency was investigating a possible link between Islamabad and Tehran.
Officials said Mr Khan was also questioned in connection with these "debriefing" sessions.
Iran acknowledged using centrifuge designs that appear to be identical to those used in Islamabad's past quest for an atom bomb. Pakistan tested its nuclear device in 1998.