Pakistan funding N. Korea nuke programPublished 2006-10-11 15:53 (KST)
Pakistan president General Musharraf clearly admitted that the so-called founder of Pakistan’s atomic bomb, Dr. A.Q. Khan, provided material and technical support to North Korea for nuclear proliferation.
He claimed in his controversial book In the Line of Fire that Khan provided at least one dozen centrifuges and other related spare parts and equipments illegally.
Ruling party and opposition in Pakistan were divided over North Korea’s nuclear blast yesterday.
Pakistan officially denied that technology was transferred from Pakistan to detonate the atomic bomb.
It is commonly known that Pakistani scientists clandestinely operated with North Korean atomic experts for a decade under supervision of Dr. Qadeer Khan.
Pakistan foreign office spokesperson Tasnim Aslam ruled out any link between the North Korean test and assistance Khan might have provided to DPRK.
She pointed out that North Korean program is plutonium-based and Pakistan's program is uranium- based, so both program are different by design and technology.
However, President Musharraf admitted that Dr. A.Q. Khan had close covert relations with the North Korean scientific community.
He wrote in his book, “We were once informed that a chartered aircraft going to North Korea for conventional missiles was also going to carry some 'irregular' cargo on his behalf. The source could not tell us exactly what the cargo was, but we were suspicious. We organized a discreet raid and searched the aircraft before its departure but unfortunately found nothing.
“Later, we were told that A.Q.’s people had been tipped off and the suspected cargo had not been loaded.” (p. 287-288).
President Musharraf directly disclosed in his book that “Dr. A.Q. Khan transferred nearly two dozen P-1 and P-11 centrifuges to North Korea. He also provided North Korea with a flow meter, some special oils for centrifuges and coaching on centrifuge technology, including visits to top-secret centrifuge plants.” (p. 294).
Popular Pakistani columnist Abbas Ather paid homage to Dr. A.Q. Khan for providing the nuclear technology to North Korea. While expressing pride in North Korea's successful atomic test, he criticized the U.S. double standard dividing the world between responsible and irresponsible countries. He taunted that “responsible American” celebrated their successful atomic test by bombing Hiroshima and Nagasaki of Japan during the Second World War.
“It is the interesting fact that Pakistani religious conservatives are celebrating the successful detonation by the communist North Korean state, which would otherwise be their archrival philosophically,” he wrote in Urdu daily Express Lahore.
On the other side of the international border, which divided the two parts of Punjab, the mainstream Indian print media pointed fingers at Pakistan in this regards.
Times of India published a front page story that blamed Pakistan for helping North Korea to develop weapons of mass destructions.
Hindustan Times, another mainstream English newspaper, wrote about Indian concerns related to the relationship of North Korea with Pakistan, quoting an unnamed senior government official.
Indian strategic analyst K. Subrahmanyam said that nuclear powers had failed to deal with a "blackmailing nuclear state in a world where terrorist non-state actors pose threats to the world.
"But North Korea is not the originator of this strategy, Pakistan is," he added.
However, The Hindu newspaper took a unique stance over nuclear proliferation and declared that nuclear-armed India's condemnation of the nuclear test as a "bit rich,” because all five so-called legitimate nuclear members have double standards.
India carried out its first nuclear test in secret in 1974. In 1998 it detonated five bombs between May 11-13.
Pakistan followed suit, exploding five bombs on May 28 and another two days later.
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