Pakistan Denies Transfer of Nuclear Material to North Korea

[Abu Zolfiqar]

Wednesday, 30 December 2009
Muharram 12, 1431

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan rejected on Tuesday allegations about involvement of the political and military leadership in transfer of nuclear-related material to North Korea by Dr A.Q. Khan in the 1990s.

Jeffery Smith and Joe Warrick levelled the allegations in an article in Washington Post headlined “Pakistani scientists depicts more advanced nuclear programme in North Korea”, and claimed that these were based on ‘a previously unpublicised account’ by Dr Khan, implicating former President General (retd) Pervez Musharraf, the current Chief of Strategic Plans Division General (retd) Khalid Kidwai and other officials.

“Mr Khan said Gen Pervez Musharraf, the chief of the army staff from 1998 to 2007 and president from 2001 to 2008, and ‘his right-hand men’, including Kidwai, knew everything and were controlling incoming and outgoing consignments.

Mr Kidwai heads the group that controls Pakistan’s arsenal, estimated by some US government analysts at more than 100 weapons,” the article said.

Military spokesman Maj-Gen Athar Abbas said there was no state-level connivance as had been alleged in the article.

He said Pakistan had shared all relevant information with countries concerned and the IAEA and the chapter was now closed.

He said that any attempt to reignite a dead issue for possible material gains would only further expose the designs of the anti-Pakistan lobby.

Answering a question about the alleged involvement of Pakistani leadership, he said: “These are dismissed with contempt as a pack of lies, relying on dubious sources that have already been discredited”.

About SPD’s director-general Lt-Gen (retd) Khalid Kidwai, he said that the officer was serving as a lieutenant colonel and brigadier in the Pakistan Army during the 90s, the period of Dr Khan’s proliferation activities.

He held professional tenures in Quetta, Jhelum, Islamabad, Peshawar and Okara before assuming the newly-created post of DG SPD in April 1999.

“The attempt to scandalise his name and bring it into disrepute, besides being absurd is evidently because the SPD investigated and brought Dr Khan’s proliferations activities to a closure.

The strategy to target important personalities of Pakistan’s nuclear programme is quite clear, you can draw your own conclusions out of it,” he said.

He said there was absolutely no truth in the purported allegations made in the report. Such charges had previously appeared in many journalistic pieces and having failed in their campaign to malign the nuclear safety and security regime of Pakistan, these inimical and hostile lobbies have changed their strategy to now target specific personalities in charge of the nuclear programme.

Foreign Office spokesman Abdul Basit said the assertions and insinuations made in the story were baseless.

“At no point in time were there any authorised transfers of nuclear-related materials”.

He said that in fact the so-called A. Q. Khan proliferation network had been effectively dismantled and all relevant information was shared with the IAEA and states concerned.

The government also devised and continues to implement a foolproof safety and security regime for nuclear-related material.

“In short, A.Q. Khan is a closed chapter. There is no point over dramatising the A.Q. Khan related stories which are more a fiction than fact,” the spokesman said.

The Washington Post report quoted Dr Khan as saying that he negotiated the purchase of 10 Nodong missiles and related technology for $150 million after visiting North Korea in 1994 at the request of Benazir Bhutto, then Pakistan’s prime minister, and top army officials.

“As a result of this deal, 10 North Korean experts came to Kahuta and were housed within the complex,” Dr Khan was quoted as having said.

DAWN.COM | National | Pakistan denies transfer of N-material to N.Korea