there are rumours among western Intel services that the hydrogen bombs that were tested by mirth korea, at least one of them was a Pakistani test where the north Koreans were just surrogates. But again, just a rumor so who knows...
There was no Hindustan before 1947.
India get the same via Iran, this is why India is always step behind Pakistan.
We call a person who kill innocent a Terrorist and you guys called it "Prime Minister of India". Now you are teaching us moral. India is a big Joke and first educate your self.
A poor country made enormous sacrifices to get nuclear weapons—and has them still.
When Donald Trump canceled his planned summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un—before hinting that it might happen anyway after all, as the South Koreans moved into damage-control mode on Saturday with an impromptu summit of their own—it followed days of discussion over a historical parallel: Libya. U.S. National-Security Adviser John Bolton said the basis for a deal with North Korea was the “Libya model” from 2003 to 2004, when Muammar Qaddafi essentially handed over his entire nuclear program to the United States. For North Korea, however, this allusion to Libya looked “awfully sinister” because, in 2011, less than a decade after Libya appeased the West, the United States and its allies joined with local rebels to topple Qaddafi’s regime.
For Pyongyang, Libya is not the only warning from history about the perils of disarmament. In 2003, Iraq claimed to have abandoned its pursuit of weapons of mass destruction, and even allowed inspectors back into the country, but nevertheless endured a U.S. invasion and regime change. In 2015, Iran agreed to limit its nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief, but in 2018 Trump tore up the deal.
So are there any models of “rogue” regimes with nuclear programs that might appeal to North Korea? The answer is yes. But, unfortunately, it’s a state that kept its nuclear deterrent intact: Pakistan. If Pyongyang is weighing up two possible futures—Libya vs. Pakistan—it’s not much of a choice.
Pakistan began to seriously pursue nuclear weapons in the 1970s, motivated by a desire to deter its more powerful rival India, as well as match India’s nuclear capability. The Pakistani politician Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, who later became prime minister, claimed, “If India builds the bomb, we will eat grass or leaves—even go hungry—but we will get one of our own.” In 1998, on a clear and bright day in the Chagai district, Pakistan carried out a series of nuclear tests. Pakistan’s chief scientific officer said “All praise be to Allah” and pushed the button, causing the mountain to shake in a vast explosion.
In 2016, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists estimated that Pakistan had 130 to 140 warheads and predicted that it would nearly double its arsenal by 2025. Islamabad could deliver nuclear weapons by medium-range ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, F-16 fighters, and tactical systems for short-range use on the battlefield.
We can be confident that North Korea is paying close attention to Islamabad’s experience. After all, the two countries share important similarities. They both face an enduring rivalry with a far more powerful democratic state that used to be part of the same country (India and South Korea). Furthermore, both North Korea and Pakistan have, at times, flouted international norms. In 2003, North Korea withdrew from the Non-Proliferation Treaty. Pakistan never signed the treaty. For decades, North Korea and Pakistan have been informal allies, trading conventional weapons and supporting Iran in the Iran-Iraq War.
Another reason that Pyongyang is certain to consider the Pakistan model is that the two states have cooperated on nuclear development. In 2006, the Congressional Research Service reported that Pyongyang gave missile technology to Islamabad, and Pakistan transferred nuclear technology to North Korea, through the network of the Pakistani nuclear engineer Abdul Qadeer Khan. During the 1990s, when North Korea suffered a famine that killed perhaps 500,000 people, and North Koreans literally ate grass and leaves, Pyongyang continued to prioritize military development and received key data from Pakistan on uranium enrichment. Pakistan is even suspected of having carried out a nuclear test for North Korea.
From North Korea’s perspective, the Pakistan model must look compelling. First of all, Pakistan’s nuclear weapons have successfully deterred India. The 1960s and 1970s were a time of humiliating military defeats for Pakistan, including the 1971 Indo-Pakistani War, when Pakistan lost 56,000 square miles of territory, which became the new state of Bangladesh. Nuclear weapons have essentially removed the possibility of a large-scale Indian invasion. In 1987, President Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq told his Indian counterpart, “If your forces cross our borders by an inch, we are going to annihilate your cities.” In 1999, Pakistani troops crossed into Indian-controlled Kashmir, triggering the Kargil Crisis and military hostilities. Crucially, India avoided escalation, kept the war limited, and declined to enter Pakistani territory. One study concluded “the principal source of Indian restraint was Pakistan’s overt possession of a nuclear arsenal.”
In addition, Pakistan’s nuclear capability led the West to handle the country with kid gloves. The United States provided millions of dollars of material assistance to guard Pakistan’s nuclear stockpile, including helicopters and nuclear detection equipment. Pakistan’s nuclear capability is also one reason why Washington continued to provide billions of dollars in military and economic aid, even though Islamabad supported the Taliban insurgency that battled U.S. troops in Afghanistan.
Meanwhile, Pakistan gained prestige as the only Muslim-majority country with nuclear weapons. The Pakistani Ministry of Foreign Affairs described the nuclear program as “Pakistan’s finest hour.” The nuclear program is also domestically popular. The nuclear tests in 1998 that shook mountains led to jubilant street celebrations.
Of course, all of this came at a cost. The money poured into Pakistan’s nuclear program could have been spent on health or education. The nuclear tests in 1998 were condemned around the world. After refusing to sign the Non-Proliferation Treaty, Pakistan faces restrictions on importing civilian nuclear technology. Nuclear weapons may deter India, but they also risk accidents and even escalation to nuclear war.
But for North Korea, the balance sheet still favors the Pakistan model: a poor country that ate grass to build a nuclear deterrent, seeks to be accepted as a recognized nuclear power, supports denuclearization in principle but only as part of a broader international disarmament effort (that will likely never happen), successfully deters a more powerful rival, and gains domestic prestige and international status.
Saddam and Qaddafi made their choices, and they’re both dead. North Korea wants to follow a different path. Why not become the Pakistan of East Asia?
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
DOMINIC TIERNEY is a contributing editor at The Atlantic and an associate professor of political science at Swarthmore College. His latest book is The Right Way to Lose a War: America in an Age of Unwinnable Conflicts.
Yeah, but are you seriously comparing the political advantages enjoyed by Israel to the limbo that North Korea is stuck in? You can give Israel the death star and people will still be OK with it, cause let's face it Israel has a better standing with other countries despite all the Palestine fiasco.
I never said anything about the economic viability of Pakistan's nuclear arsenal. Why are you dragging expenses and economy into the conversation?
Don't get the point of this post. The article itself says the center was established by the UN. Hardly a 'secretive under the table sort of dealing'. As for the rest of the article, yeah India has a better relation with North Korea than most other countries.India's embarrassing North Korean connection
Research centre in the Himalayan foothills under scrutiny after revelation that it trained North Korean scientists.
New Delhi, India - Hong Yong-il is the North Korean embassy’s new first secretary to India and has been in the country for just a month.
He lives on the first floor of a two-storey house in a tree-lined lane in Delhi’s busy Lajpat Nagar.
The apartment is huge but nondescript, sparsely furnished; a modest affair as compared with many other diplomatic residences in the Indian capital.
Hong wears on his shirt a miniature badge, with the face of Kim Il-sung, the country's founding father and grandfather of current leader Kim Jong-un.
Kim Jong-un says North Korea is a responsible nuclear state
This is not Hong's first stint in India. In 1996, he stayed in the country for nine months, studying a course in remote sensing technology at the Centre for Space Science and Technology Education in Asia and the Pacific (CSSTEAP).
The research centre is located in Dehradun, a small town in the foothills of the Himalayas, about 235km from the Indian capital New Delhi.
"Dehradun is a very quiet town," Hong said in an interview with Al Jazeera. "The course was very informative, the teachers were very good."
Hong was, in fact, one of the first students North Korea sent to train at the centre, a school set up in 1995 by the United Nations, to ensure that "in years to come, no country in the region will have to look abroad for expertise in space science & technology application".
Training North Korean students
Since then, North Korea has sent at least 30 students to train at the institute.
Two are currently studying there, one of whom is affiliated with the National Aerospace Development Administration, which, the report says, plays a key role in the country's nuclear development programme.
And it kept sending scientists and space employees, even after the UN issued the first set of nuclear sanctions in 2006, prohibiting member countries from providing technical training to North Korea.
The lapse was exposed only in March 2016 in an annual report to the UN Security Council.
The "repeated applications" by North Korea, the report said, indicates the courses were relevant to its nuclear weapons and ballistic missile development programme.
The UN has issued five major sanctions against North Korea since 2006.
North Korea: Challenges of a 'pariah state'
However, some of the course modules at the centre training the North Koreans might have violated provisions of the sanctions.
For example, the report states, one of the courses offered instructions that "could be directly relevant" to "designing and testing a launch vehicle using ballistic missile technology, such as those on launch vehicles, attitude control, and telemetry, tracking, command and data-handling systems".
Investigators also found a course on satellite communications, which is in violation of a resolution banning "any transfers" to or from North Korea, "technical training, advice, services or assistance related to nuclear-related, ballistic missile-related or other weapons of mass destruction- related programmes".
Not traditional allies
India and North Korea are not traditional allies. They have shared diplomatic relations since the 1970s, but India has also been one of the staunchest opponents of North Korea's nuclear weapons development programme.
The centre is funded in part by the UN, along with India and several other organisations. It said that the sanction was taken into account in the admission process.
India justified the content of the courses, saying that the topics covered are "very general" and the basic principles of these courses "are available from open-source".
It also said that topics covered "would certainly not contribute to acquiring expertise in those specific areas by the participants".
Dehradun, in the foothills of the Himalayas, is home to several elite Indian defence institutes [Reuters]
However, North Korean students who trained in the school have gone on to occupy important state positions in Pyongyang.
After finishing his course in India, Hong, the official at the North Korean embassy in Delhi, went on to head a research group on remote sensing technology at the State Commission for Science and Technology, where he worked until his assignment in India.
Paek Chang-ho, who had been on the satellite communications course at the institute in 1999-2000, before the sanctions were issued, became the head of an agency involved with North Korea's first satellite launch in 2012.
The 52-year-old Paek, who ended up on the UN's sanctions list for his role in the 2012 launch, is now a senior official at a scientific research agency.
"The training may very well have helped North Korea's military programmes," Bruce Bechtol, president of the International Council on Korean Studies, said in an email.
But the Texas-based professor and Korea expert said that the result of the probe "does not necessarily make India complicit" with North Korea's programme.
Global navigation studies
According to the report, North Korea tried to send at least one student to the institute in 2015 to attend a global navigation satellite systems course, although his application along with those of four others was rejected.
"I don't know why they have rejected all the applications," Hong, of the North Korean embassy in Delhi, told Al Jazeera.
"I have contacted the university officials but they are yet to give me an explanation."
Hong seems unaware of the Security Council report, or that India has been asked for an explanation over the apparent lapse.
Skand Tayal, a former Indian ambassador to South Korea, told Al Jazeera that "whatever cooperation" India has with North Korea is meant for "civilian application".
"India has been consistently opposing North Korea's nuclear development programme," said Tayal, who has observed North Korea for many years.
"If there has been a violation, it would be an oversight."
The Security Council report said it too believes that the slip-up was inadvertent.
An email to the institute requesting for comment went unanswered.
Sarnam Singh, programme coordinator and director of one of the courses, said the institute was not accepting applications from any more North Korean students.
'Serious error'
India is due to present a detailed report to an UN advisory committee on the issue.
"It doesn't take a rocket scientist to realise how extraordinarily unwise, and indeed irresponsible, it is nowadays to train North Korean operatives in technologies that can be used to improve and perfect their ballistic missile programme," Nicholas Eberstadt, a political economist at the American Enterprise Institute think-tank, said in an email.
"The government of India needs to acknowledge the seriousness of this error, take accountability for it, and publicly commit that it will not be an enabler of North Korean WMD programmes thenceforth."
RP Singh, a former Indian ambassador to North Korea (2002-2004), said the idea behind the courses is to provide professional and not technical training.
"India won't knowingly violate US sanctions," he said.
Earlier in January, India condemned North Korea's claim of detonating a hydrogen bomb, and called it a matter of "deep concern".
India eyes nuclear technology deal with Japan
India is concerned about "proliferation links between North East Asia and our neighbourhood", Vikas Swaroop, India's foreign office spokesman, had said, in an indirect reference to Pakistan's AQ Khan network.
The network was ran by Abdul Qadeer Khan, the father of Pakistan's nuclear weapons programme, and who is credited with selling sensitive nuclear technology to North Korea.
In 2004, Khan got a pardon from then Pakistan president Pervez Musharraf and made a televised confession saying he acted alone and absolved the Pakistan government of any hand or knowledge in the network.
Pakistan, backed by China, and India, backed by the US, are currently seeking the much-coveted membership of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), an elite group of 48 nuclear supplier countries.
On Monday, the NSG begins a week-long meeting in Seoul, South Korea, to decide on the membership of both India and Pakistan.
The controversy surrounding the training of North Korean scientists may or may not have much bearing on the outcome of the Seoul meeting, but it does amount to a curious footnote to the global debate on nuclear non-proliferation and missile technology control.
The UN has issued five major sanctions against North Korea since 2006 [Reuters]
https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/f...-north-korean-connection-160620195559208.html
Dictatorial yes, or it was. It was never rogue.
A poor country made enormous sacrifices to get nuclear weapons—and has them still.
When Donald Trump canceled his planned summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un—before hinting that it might happen anyway after all, as the South Koreans moved into damage-control mode on Saturday with an impromptu summit of their own—it followed days of discussion over a historical parallel: Libya. U.S. National-Security Adviser John Bolton said the basis for a deal with North Korea was the “Libya model” from 2003 to 2004, when Muammar Qaddafi essentially handed over his entire nuclear program to the United States. For North Korea, however, this allusion to Libya looked “awfully sinister” because, in 2011, less than a decade after Libya appeased the West, the United States and its allies joined with local rebels to topple Qaddafi’s regime.
For Pyongyang, Libya is not the only warning from history about the perils of disarmament. In 2003, Iraq claimed to have abandoned its pursuit of weapons of mass destruction, and even allowed inspectors back into the country, but nevertheless endured a U.S. invasion and regime change. In 2015, Iran agreed to limit its nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief, but in 2018 Trump tore up the deal.
So are there any models of “rogue” regimes with nuclear programs that might appeal to North Korea? The answer is yes. But, unfortunately, it’s a state that kept its nuclear deterrent intact: Pakistan. If Pyongyang is weighing up two possible futures—Libya vs. Pakistan—it’s not much of a choice.
Pakistan began to seriously pursue nuclear weapons in the 1970s, motivated by a desire to deter its more powerful rival India, as well as match India’s nuclear capability. The Pakistani politician Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, who later became prime minister, claimed, “If India builds the bomb, we will eat grass or leaves—even go hungry—but we will get one of our own.” In 1998, on a clear and bright day in the Chagai district, Pakistan carried out a series of nuclear tests. Pakistan’s chief scientific officer said “All praise be to Allah” and pushed the button, causing the mountain to shake in a vast explosion.
In 2016, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists estimated that Pakistan had 130 to 140 warheads and predicted that it would nearly double its arsenal by 2025. Islamabad could deliver nuclear weapons by medium-range ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, F-16 fighters, and tactical systems for short-range use on the battlefield.
We can be confident that North Korea is paying close attention to Islamabad’s experience. After all, the two countries share important similarities. They both face an enduring rivalry with a far more powerful democratic state that used to be part of the same country (India and South Korea). Furthermore, both North Korea and Pakistan have, at times, flouted international norms. In 2003, North Korea withdrew from the Non-Proliferation Treaty. Pakistan never signed the treaty. For decades, North Korea and Pakistan have been informal allies, trading conventional weapons and supporting Iran in the Iran-Iraq War.
Another reason that Pyongyang is certain to consider the Pakistan model is that the two states have cooperated on nuclear development. In 2006, the Congressional Research Service reported that Pyongyang gave missile technology to Islamabad, and Pakistan transferred nuclear technology to North Korea, through the network of the Pakistani nuclear engineer Abdul Qadeer Khan. During the 1990s, when North Korea suffered a famine that killed perhaps 500,000 people, and North Koreans literally ate grass and leaves, Pyongyang continued to prioritize military development and received key data from Pakistan on uranium enrichment. Pakistan is even suspected of having carried out a nuclear test for North Korea.
From North Korea’s perspective, the Pakistan model must look compelling. First of all, Pakistan’s nuclear weapons have successfully deterred India. The 1960s and 1970s were a time of humiliating military defeats for Pakistan, including the 1971 Indo-Pakistani War, when Pakistan lost 56,000 square miles of territory, which became the new state of Bangladesh. Nuclear weapons have essentially removed the possibility of a large-scale Indian invasion. In 1987, President Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq told his Indian counterpart, “If your forces cross our borders by an inch, we are going to annihilate your cities.” In 1999, Pakistani troops crossed into Indian-controlled Kashmir, triggering the Kargil Crisis and military hostilities. Crucially, India avoided escalation, kept the war limited, and declined to enter Pakistani territory. One study concluded “the principal source of Indian restraint was Pakistan’s overt possession of a nuclear arsenal.”
In addition, Pakistan’s nuclear capability led the West to handle the country with kid gloves. The United States provided millions of dollars of material assistance to guard Pakistan’s nuclear stockpile, including helicopters and nuclear detection equipment. Pakistan’s nuclear capability is also one reason why Washington continued to provide billions of dollars in military and economic aid, even though Islamabad supported the Taliban insurgency that battled U.S. troops in Afghanistan.
Meanwhile, Pakistan gained prestige as the only Muslim-majority country with nuclear weapons. The Pakistani Ministry of Foreign Affairs described the nuclear program as “Pakistan’s finest hour.” The nuclear program is also domestically popular. The nuclear tests in 1998 that shook mountains led to jubilant street celebrations.
Of course, all of this came at a cost. The money poured into Pakistan’s nuclear program could have been spent on health or education. The nuclear tests in 1998 were condemned around the world. After refusing to sign the Non-Proliferation Treaty, Pakistan faces restrictions on importing civilian nuclear technology. Nuclear weapons may deter India, but they also risk accidents and even escalation to nuclear war.
But for North Korea, the balance sheet still favors the Pakistan model: a poor country that ate grass to build a nuclear deterrent, seeks to be accepted as a recognized nuclear power, supports denuclearization in principle but only as part of a broader international disarmament effort (that will likely never happen), successfully deters a more powerful rival, and gains domestic prestige and international status.
Saddam and Qaddafi made their choices, and they’re both dead. North Korea wants to follow a different path. Why not become the Pakistan of East Asia?
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
DOMINIC TIERNEY is a contributing editor at The Atlantic and an associate professor of political science at Swarthmore College. His latest book is The Right Way to Lose a War: America in an Age of Unwinnable Conflicts.
