Pakistan to head UN nuclear watchdog IAEA

Pakistan, once accused of smuggling nuclear weapons technology to Iran, Libya and North Korea, will now head the board of governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the United Nations atomic agency's main decision-making body.

Pakistan will take over from Malaysia, whose Muhammad Shahrul Ikram Yaakob, is the current chairman of the agency. Yaakob's term expires this month.

Pakistan assumes the chairmanship of the Vienna-based UN nuclear watchdog with support from a group of Middle East and South Asian member states.

Pakistan's envoy Ansar Parvez will now chair meetings of IAEA's 35-member board of governors, according to a statement issued by the Vienna-based agency.

Pakistan is heading the IAEA board for the first time after its 1998 testing of six nuclear bombs. It had twice earlier chaired the IAEA board of governors, in 1963 and 1987.

"All of our civil installations are under IAEA safeguards and we are an abiding member" of the organisation, Parvez, said after today's meeting. "We can try to mediate in some of the things in which the IAEA has been engaged over the last few years."

Pakistan, which has about 60 nuclear bombs, according to the Washington-based Arms Control Association, still is outside the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty.

The US, which has been the most critical of Pakistan's proliferation activities, merely said Pakistan has not yet complied with its request to allow US authorities to interview Abdul Qadeer Khan, the father of Pakistan's atomic bomb, who is also accused of smuggling nuclear secrets to Iran, Libya and North Korea.