ISLAMABAD - International anti-proliferation experts met Pakistani officials for the first time Monday, amid concern about a nuclear black market run by the disgraced father of the country's atomic bomb.
Pakistan has been under a strict embargo by the Nuclear Suppliers Group, which includes the United States, Britain, France, China and Russia and other key atomic powers, since testing its first nuclear warhead in 1998.
The South Asian nation has said it wants to join the 44-nation grouping despite a continuing probe into the activities of scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan. He has admitted giving nuclear technology to North Korea, Iran and Libya.
The Nuclear Suppliers Group team met Foreign Secretary Riaz Mohammad Khan, the top civil servant in the foreign office, a ministry official said on condition of anonymity.
They also held talks with other officials including additional secretary Tariq Usman Haider. "The meeting with Haider, who deals with nuclear-related matters, lasted about an hour," the official said.
More talks may be held tomorrow, officials said.
Islamabad's bid to join the group is likely to face major difficulties because Pakistan is not a party to the 1968 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Nor is its rival India or suspected nuclear-armed power Israel.
The group aims to prevent nuclear exports for commercial and peaceful purposes from being used to make nuclear weapons. Members voluntarily coordinate their export controls to non-nuclear-weapon states.
Foreign office spokesman Jalil Abbas Jilani said Pakistan would not press for membership during the talks, the country's first formal interaction with the group.
"This is the first meeting and exploratory in nature. Questions like seeking the membership of the group would come later," Jilani said late Sunday.
Jilani was expected to give more details at a regular media briefing later Monday.
Officials have said Pakistan wanted to have a "mutually cooperative" relationship with the Nuclear Suppliers Group.
Pakistan admitted last month that Khan, its top nuclear scientist, provided Iran with centrifuges which can be used to enrich uranium for warheads. But it insisted the government was not involved in the deal.
Military ruler President Pervez Musharraf has said that Pakistan will send centrifuge parts for tests by the UN's atomic agency to help establish whether Iran has been secretly developing nuclear weapons.
The move marks a major turnaround by Islamabad, which recently insisted it would not surrender the components despite admitting that Khan had given centrifuges to Tehran.
Khan is under virtual house arrest in Islamabad after confessing in February 2004 to passing on nuclear know-how,
But he was pardoned by Musharraf and Pakistan has refused to let the UN atomic energy agency question him.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said during a visit to Islamabad last month that Washington wants to crush the "tentacles" of the Khan network, but added that Pakistan was cooperating.
04/11/2005 10:23 GMT