Thursday, Aug 25, 2005
A.Q. Khan gave North Korea centrifuges, confirms Musharraf
Pakistan is self-reliant in nuclear and missile development, says President
[Abdul Qadeer Khan]
TOKYO: Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf has confirmed that disgraced nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan provided North Korea with centrifuge machines and their designs, Kyodo news agency said on Wednesday.
Mr. Khan, revered in Pakistan as the man who gave his country the weapons capability to balance that of the nuclear-armed neighbour India, admitted last year to leaking nuclear secrets to Iran, Libya and North Korea.
In an interview with Kyodo on Tuesday, Gen. Musharraf spoke in public for the first time about Mr. Khan's clandestine transfer of nuclear technology, the Japanese agency reported from Islamabad.
Asked about reports that Pakistan told Japanese Government officials that Mr. Khan had given North Korea about 20 centrifuges, Gen. Musharraf was quoted as saying: "Yes, he passed centrifuges — parts and complete. I do not exactly remember the number."
Limited help
He, however, said Mr. Khan could not have been of immense help to North Korea's nuclear weapons programmes because, while his laboratory was engaged in uranium enrichment, it was not involved in other steps needed to make a nuclear bomb such as conversion of uranium into gas, or the development of the trigger mechanism and delivery systems.
"So if North Korea has made a bomb, Dr A. Q. Khan's part is only enriching the uranium to weapons grade. He does not know about making the bomb, he does not know about the trigger mechanism, he does not know about the delivery system," Kyodo quoted Gen. Musharraf as saying.
Regarding such additional technology, Gen. Musharraf said the North Koreans "must have got it themselves or somewhere else — not from Pakistan".
Gen. Musharraf pardoned Mr. Khan after he confessed to leaking nuclear secrets, but he has been under virtual house arrest since at his home in Islamabad.
The General also rejected media reports that Mr. Khan had bartered uranium enrichment secrets for North Korean help in Pakistan's programme to develop the medium-range Ghauri missile, believed to be an improved version of Pyongyang's Rodong missile.
He said Pakistan had cooperated with North Korea in the production of conventional weapons when it developed the shoulder-fired Anza missile. But there was never any bilateral cooperation in the "strategic" or nuclear field. "We paid for each and every item that we got from North Korea. There was no exchange of knowledge or equipment. That is absolutely wrong," Gen. Musharraf said. Mr. Khan made three trips to Mali between 1998 and 2000 to meet Libyan officials interested in procuring uranium technology from Pakistan, the President said. Pakistan was now "totally self-contained, in all the facets of nuclear development, in all the facets of missile development. We do not borrow, we do not get from anyone." — Agencies
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