LONDON -- The British government Tuesday dismissed concern over the alleged sale to Iran last year of a quantity of beryllium metal, which has a high-tech use in civilian industry as well as being a component for developing a nuclear bomb.

"A license would not be issued if there were an unacceptable risk of use in connection with weapons of mass destruction," a spokesman for the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) told IRNA.

"All relevant UK export license applications are rigorously assessed on a case-by-case basis against the consolidated EU and national arms export licensing criteria," he said.

The BBC in a radio program being broadcast Tuesday evening claims that the DTI allowed the sale of beryllium to Iran last year in breach of an international ban.

The program, file on four, makes allegations that Iranian procurement agents have been working in the UK to purchase sensitive material.

But according to the Foreign Office's latest annual report on strategic exports, no sale of equipment on Britain's 'military list' was approved in 2001.

Out of 83 applications for standard individual export licenses made by British companies for various sales to Iran, only 67 were agreed.

Of the refusals, three were from the military list and 13 were other items, largely classified as goods with a potential dual use. The DTI spokesman said that the UK government was aware of the special risks that exist in relations to weapons of mass destruction and "for this reason gives extremely careful scrutiny to applications which involve potential weapons of mass destruction concerns."

"Such scrutiny will involve risk assessment of the proposed end-use and potential end-users and also analysis of risk diversion," he told IRNA.

Iran is one of only two countries singled out by Britain under a unilateral sanctions regime. Embargoes are imposed against 22 countries, but all others are in line with sanctions from the UN, EU or organization for security and cooperation in Europe.

The BBC program also makes allegations of a cover-up in approving the sale of parts and production equipment for dual use in Hawk jet trainers fighters to India.

But in this case, Foreign Secretary Jack Straw was reported Tuesday to have admitted misleading Parliament over the license approval.

In letters to shadow Foreign Secretary Michael Ancram and Liberal Democrat Foreign Affairs Spokesman Menzies Campbell, Straw said the Hawks jet fiasco was an "oversight," according to the independent newspaper.