ABU DHABI - FRANCE and Pakistan are negotiating a partnership including nuclear cooperation and French President Nicolas Sarkozy could travel to Pakistan in the autumn to sign a deal, a source close to Mr Sarkozy said on Monday.

The source said talks were ongoing on a wide variety of issues including nuclear security, an extremely sensitive question since a Pakistani scientist was at the centre of the world's biggest nuclear proliferation scandal in 2004.

Mr Sarkozy met Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari in Paris on May 15 and was reported by the Pakistani foreign minister as saying that France wanted Islamabad to obtain a wide-ranging deal to buy nuclear equipment like the one granted to India.

France has not confirmed that was exactly what Mr Sarkozy had told Mr Zardari. Paris said only that Mr Sarkozy wanted Pakistan to improve its nuclear security and was prepared to cooperate with the Asian country in that respect.

The source close to Mr Sarkozy said that since his meeting with Mr Zardari, the French leader had also met the Pakistani army chief of staff. The source said Mr Zardari had been informed of that.

The idea of striking a similar deal with Pakistan as the Indian agreement is likely to raise fears that sensitive technology could leak out once again.

The 45-nation Nuclear Suppliers Group, which was created after India tested its first nuclear weapon in 1974 and seeks to prevent nuclear technology from falling into the wrong hands, agreed in September to lift a ban on nuclear trade with India.

The waiver, won after years of lobbying by the United States, paved the way for a US-India nuclear deal under which India can receive sensitive nuclear technology even though it has not signed up to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

Pakistan, which has also not signed the NPT, has dismissed concerns about the safety of its nuclear arsenal and its proliferation history.

Scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan, revered by many Pakistanis as the father of the country's nuclear bomb, confessed to selling nuclear secrets to Iran, North Korea and Libya in 2004. -- REUTERS