The U.N. expert visited Iran to propose plans to deal with the Y2K bug at the invitation of the state Supreme Informatics Council, the country's top policy-making body in the computer industry, the agency added. A member of the council, which is in charge of Iran's efforts to make computer systems millennium compatible, was quoted in February as saying that the country had just begun to take steps to deal with the Y2K bug.
Western computers are widely available in Iran.
Dealers say U.S. computers reach Iran through third countries that allow the equipment to be exported despite United States sanctions. Pirated Western software is widely sold in the country. Iran, which needs an estimated 150,000 computers a year, has hundreds of companies involved in assembling computers and developing original software or making Persian-language versions of foreign programs.