**Pakistan ‘helping mass destruction plans’
**
The United States says a key nuclear installation in Pakistan has been helping another country in its programme of weapons of mass destruction.
A spokeswoman at the US embassy in Islamabad refused to name the country involved.
The US says it has imposed sanctions on the installation, a nuclear enrichment facility. But it has not given details of them.
Pakistan has strongly criticised the move, although it says it will not affect relations between the two countries.
The installation at the centre of the dispute is the Kahuta Research Laboratories (KRL) near the capital, Islamabad.
**Not clear
**
The US imposed the sanctions because of KRL’s “material contribution to the efforts of a foreign (non-US) country, person or entity of proliferation concern, to use, acquire, design, develop and or secure weapons of mass destruction, and/or missiles capable of delivering mass destruction,” the AFP news agency reports a US embassy spokeswoman in Islamabad as saying.
However, correspondents say it is not clear if these are fresh sanctions or the renewal of sanctions already in place.
In its first public comments on the issue on Monday, the US embassy said the sanctions came into force last week.
The Pakistani Foreign Ministry on Monday said the decision was unjustified.
It added that the restrictions would not affect the work of the nuclear installation at Kahuta.
It also appeared to contradict the US explanation for the move, saying it was because Pakistan had acquired material from another country - not because it supplied material to a third party.
KRL’s former head is Abdul Qadeer Khan.
Dr Khan became a national hero in Pakistan for his key role in developing the nation’s nuclear weapons programme.
He is now an adviser to the government.
Pakistan has, in the past, rejected allegations that it has supported North Korea’s nuclear weapons programme.
North Korea is one of the countries branded by the US as part of an “axis of evil”.
**‘Nothing to look at’
**
Last November, the US said it was satisfied that Pakistan was no longer co-operating with North Korea in supplying nuclear weapons technology.
US Secretary of State Colin Powell said there was nothing at the moment “that has been reported to me that I need to be looking at”.
Mr Powell said President Pervez Musharraf had assured him that there were no further contacts of the kind that were referred to in a New York Times report which said Islamabad provided Pyongyang with gas centrifuges and equipment to make highly-enriched uranium.
The report alleged that in return for helping North Korea, Pakistan had received help for its strategic missile programme