The clarification came in response to Mustafa Osman Ismail's request Tuesday that Washington look into reports of nuclear waste allegedly buried in the country in the 1960s and 1970s.

Ismail then said the information had been posted on a news website by an unnamed US Defense Department official.

"We have no reason that makes us doubt the explanation that we have received from the US administration," he told reporters Thursday, adding, , that the investigation the Sudanese authorities had begun would continue "so as to be fully reassured."

Before obtaining clarifiction on the matter, several senior Sudanese government officials had fiercely criticised the United States, branding it an "evil" and "criminal" state which they blamed for the spread of cancer in their country.

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