A former UN arms inspector held slim hopes that the United States would take up his cause to have Pakistani nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan questioned over his possible sale of nuclear know-how to Iran or North Korea.
Former inspector David Albright said he has few, if any encouraging signs from Washington since he published a report Monday saying that Abdul Qadeer Khan could have sold them blueprints for an advanced nuclear warhead.
"I'm not very optimistic," Albright told AFP on Thursday when asked whether he could pressure the US government into getting Pakistan to allow Khan to be questioned by outside experts.
"I haven't talked to US government people about this ... My main motivation was just to let people know about this and that a public discussion could put pressure on the US government," he said in the telephone interview.
"But I don't know if it has (raised pressure). So far they're reacting as if they don't want to hear the information," said Albright, president of the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS).
In his report on the ISIS website, Albright wrote that the United States and the UN atomic watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), must be allowed to question Khan to learn if he sold the plans to Pyongyang or Tehran.
Khan, the father of Pakistan's atomic bomb, on Tuesday strongly denied the suspicions cast by Albright. Albright said he fears there is a danger that Khan might be released from house arrest without having to answer questions about the sensitive blueprints which show how to build a warhead compact enough to fit on a ballistic missile.
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