In Pakistan, Atomic Bomb Developer Questioned

ISTANBUL, Turkey — Pakistani authorities said Monday that they were questioning Abdul Qadeer Khan, the father of Pakistan’s atomic bomb, about possible links between the nuclear programs in their country and Iran.

The interrogation comes after diplomats said last month that the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna was investigating information provided by Iran that linked some Pakistanis to Tehran’s nuclear program.

An Iranian uranium enrichment process used centrifuge designs identical to those once used by Pakistan, officials said. Khan originally took the designs from a European company where he worked in the 1970s, intelligence officials said.

A Pakistani diplomat said in a brief telephone interview that authorities in Islamabad, the Pakistani capital, were questioning Khan. The diplomat stressed that Khan had not been implicated in any wrongdoing.

“Dr. Khan is simply being asked what he knows about this matter,” said the diplomat, who spoke on condition that his name not be used.

Masood Khan, a spokesman for Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry, told Reuters in Islamabad that the nuclear scientist was being questioned about information received from several scientists who work at his Khan Research Laboratories, a government uranium enrichment plant outside the capital.

“He is too eminent a scientist to undergo a normal debriefing session,” he said. “However, some questions have been raised with him in relation to the ongoing debriefing sessions.”

Mohamed ElBaradei, the director-general of the IAEA, told reporters in Vienna on Monday that inspectors also intended to investigate whether outside countries assisted Libya in its previously secret uranium enrichment efforts.

Libya, which said it was giving up its nuclear weapons program, told ElBaradei that it imported “a good deal” of equipment from abroad, and suspicions focused on Pakistan.

“Whether it was the same source that has provided to other places, whether there has been an exchange of personnel, that is something [for] our investigation,” ElBaradei said.