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Published on Saturday, October 19, 2002 by the Independent/UK
US Claims Pakistan Gave Nuclear Aid to the North Koreans
by Rupert Cornwell in Washington
Pakistan, a key US ally in the war against terror, has been
named as a
major supplier of equipment for North Korea's secret program
to
develop nuclear weapons, whose disclosure this week stunned
the Bush
administration.
The charge was hotly denied yesterday in Islamabad, where
General
Hamid Gul a former head of Pakistan's powerful Inter
Services
Intelligence service, insisted there had been no exchange of
his
country's nuclear technology for North Korean missiles.
"North Korea's
technology has always been ahead of ours," he said. He
claimed China
and Russia were the suppliers. "We are no position to help
them." But
the Russian Foreign Ministry also denied any part in the
Korean
program
Whatever the truth - and US intelligence officials are
confident
Pakistan, Russia and China are involved - the episode
illustrates the
ambiguities and contradictions enveloping Washington's
attempts to
widen the war against terrorism to Iraq, and prevent the
spread of
weapons of mass destruction.
The New York Times said the equipment may have included the
gas
centrifuges needed to create weapons-grade enriched uranium
(the
same technology secretly used by Iraq before the Gulf War).
It
appeared to have been part of a barter deal in the late
Nineties, trading
Korean missiles to bolster Pakistan's defenses against
India, for
nuclear technology.
If so, a mystery which baffled Clinton administration
officials - of how a
near-broke Pakistan found the hard currency for North Korean
missile
technology - would be solved. But the answer only raises
other, even
more troubling questions.
Pakistan was closer than any other country to the fallen
Taliban regime
in Afghanistan. That uncomfortable fact, and the
undemocratic rule of
General Pervez Musharraf, have been ignored by the US, to
secure
Islamabad's co-operation in rooting out remnants of
al-Qa'ida and other
Islamic groups now based in Pakistan.
But it has been supplying the tools which qualify North
Korea for its
membership of President George Bush's "axis of evil". The
revelation
that Pyongyang probably has nuclear weapons is forcing the
administration to rely on diplomatic means to persuade the
North to
abandon them, in contrast to the saber-rattling against Iraq
which is
generally conceded to represent no immediate nuclear threat.
This week, John Bolton, the Under Secretary of State, and
Assistant
Secretary of State James Kelly have been in Beijing, trying
to persuade
China, which is reckoned to have the closest ties to North
Korea, to
exert pressure on the reclusive regime of Kim Jong Il.
North Korea also will dominate next week's talks between Mr
Bush and
the Chinese leader, Jiang Zemin, at the President's ranch in
Texas. Mr
Bush had intended to try to line up Chinese support for the
toughest
possible United Nations resolution on Iraq. Now Mr Bush will
have to
discuss damage control on North Korea, and prevent this
arms-control
crisis from interfering with his strategy against Saddam
Hussein.
The White House insists the cases are not comparable.
"Effective
international pressure may have an effect on North Korea,"
Condoleezza Rice, Mr Bush's national security adviser, said.
"Saddam
Hussein is in a category by himself."
C 2002 lndependent Digital (UK) Ltd
Serbian News Network - SNN
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