WASHINGTON, Nov. 19 (UPI) -- Anti-nuclear lobbyists are urging the Bush administration to use its influence on Pakistan to allow international experts to interrogate disgraced Pakistani nuclear scientist A.Q. Khan.
Khan, who is still regarded as a national hero for founding Pakistan's nuclear program, has been under house arrest since February when he admitted to selling nuclear secrets and technology to Iran, Libya and North Korea.
The most powerful appeal to the U.S. administration to demand direct access to Khan was made Thursday at a briefing on Capitol Hill where anti-nuclear lobbyists said the world would never know the truth about Iran's nuclear program until Khan is questioned by international experts.
Iran continues to claim that it is not developing nuclear weapons, but earlier this week U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell told reporters that intelligence indicates Iran is trying to modify its missiles to carry nuclear warheads. He did not elaborate.
Meanwhile, the International Atomic Energy Agency, a U.N. watchdog that oversees proliferation activities across the world, said this week it cannot say for sure whether Iran's nuclear activities are purely peaceful, as Tehran claims, or are designed to develop nuclear weapons.
The IAEA recently circulated a confidential 32-page report about Iran to diplomats on the governing board.
The agency confirmed that Iran is voluntarily suspending all enrichment-related activities, including the manufacture and import of gas centrifuges that could be used to make nuclear bombs.
The IAEA will start verification of the suspension next week.
But Iranian opposition leaders told a news conference in Paris Wednesday they have evidence to prove that Iran has a secret facility for developing nuclear weapons. Later, Iranian officials said the claim by the opposition National Council of Resistance of Iran is a lie.
They said the group is trying to negate the progress Iran recently made with European negotiators by agreeing to suspend uranium enrichment.
Iran last week agreed to suspend uranium enrichment and all linked activities in a deal worked out with Britain, France, Germany and the European Union. The deal, which goes into force on Monday, prohibits Iran from all uranium gas-processing activities, as well as other programs linked to enrichment.
But media reports quoting U.S. and European officials said Iran was exploiting the window until Monday to produce uranium hexafluoride at its plant in the central city of Isfahan.
Iran is not prohibited from making uranium hexafluoride until the deal takes force. But its decision to carry out uranium processing right up to the freeze deadline is interpreted by some anti-nuclear activists as indicative of Iran's efforts to keep the nuclear option.
The Bush administration, which does not trust Iran's claim that it is interested only in low-grade enriched uranium for nuclear power, says Tehran wants to enrich uranium to make weapons.
Meanwhile, the Washington Post reported Thursday Powell's claim that Iran could be developing nuclear-capable missiles was based on intelligence that was classified and came from an "unvetted, single source."
Referring to this confusion, two anti-nuclear activists told a briefing on Capitol Hill Thursday that only Khan, the Pakistani scientist who has confessed to supplying nuclear technology to Iran, knows the truth.
David Albright, a physicist and former arms inspector, and Kenneth Pollack, former CIA analyst, told U.S. lawmakers the IAEA would never learn how close Iran was to making nuclear weapons without interviewing Khan.
The briefing on Iran's nuclear program was attended by lawmakers from both Republican and Democratic parties, besides senior U.S. officials, academics, journalists, diplomats and lobbyists.
Albright, who now heads a Washington-based anti-nuclear group, told the gathering it was unfair to criticize the IAEA for failing to make a complete assessment of Iran's nuclear program.
The Vienna-based U.N. nuclear agency, he said, "still has one major job ahead of it, to interview Pakistani nuclear scientist A.Q. Khan" about possible transfers of nuclear material to Iran.
"It may be unachievable, but it is very important that the U.S. put pressure on Pakistan to allow this, because you cannot trust the Pakistani government in the end to represent what A.Q. Khan says," said Albright.
"And you have to worry about whether it's complete, and unfortunately, you have to worry about whether it is fully accurate," he added.
Pakistan has denied an Iranian opposition group's allegation that Khan gave Iran enriched uranium and designs for bombs. Pakistan also has informed Washington that it cannot allow foreign officials to interview Khan, who is still considered a national hero in the country despite his confessed involvement in nuclear smuggling.
Khan is under house arrest in Pakistan but Islamabad has allowed the United States to conduct indirect interrogation of the Pakistani scientist. U.S. officials send their questions to Pakistani intelligence officials who question Khan on their behalf and send his answers to their American counterparts.
Both President Bush and Powell have said they are satisfied with Pakistan's cooperation and the information the United States received from Khan allowed it to dismantle the gang that was running an international network of nuclear smugglers.
