TAIPEI: Taiwan said on Monday it would investigate reports that local firms had sold nuclear technology to Iran, which the West suspects aims to build bombs.

The Economic Ministry’s Import and Export Administration pledged the investigation due in part to a report in an English daily that said Iran had set up a nuclear-equipment smuggling network using Taiwan companies, administration director Chen Ching-chih said.

Other intelligence also pointed to a Taiwan-Iran link, he said. Iran obtained 100 transducers, tools that convert pressure into electrical signals that were made in Europe and sold to a company in Taiwan, the newspaper said, citing Western intelligence officials. It said Taiwan sold them onward to Iran.