N Korean Nukes An Open Secret Since 1999

by Ranjit Devraj

The last occasion was in the first week of October, when Islamabad conducted a series of tests described as routine but which happened to coincide with the last phase of state assembly elections in disputed Kashmir.

"As we have said before, we are not particularly impressed with these missile antics of Pakistan. It is well known that Pakistan's missiles are based on clandestinely imported material, equipment and technology," was how official spokeswoman Nirupama Rao dismissed the tests.

U.S. officials are mounting a diplomatic campaign to contain North Korea's nuclear capability, in the wake of last week's revelations that it has continued to pursue a nuclear weapons program and enriching uranium despite a 1994 agreement to freeze the scheme.

On Friday, U.S. media reports quoted intelligence officials as saying that Pakistan was actually a bigger supplier of nuclear weapons technology to North Korea than China or Russia. One official was quoted as saying North Korea supplied Pakistan with missiles to counter India, while Pakistan could help North Korea restart its nuclear program.

The question that is being asked by analysts here is how Washington could have missed this proliferation axis that links Beijing to its two closest allies in Asia -- except deliberately.

Pakistan President Gen. Pervez Musharraf, who seized power in a bloodless coup in October 1999, a month after Washington compelled Islamabad to vacate armed intrusions into Indian Kashmir, has denied that Pakistan was in any way involved with the North Korean bomb.

"We have never had an accident or leak or any export of fissile material or nuclear technology or knowledge," a Pakistani embassy spokesman in Washington said.

But analysts here have long accused China of passing on nuclear technology to Pakistan and missile technology to North Korea, and are certain that Beijing may have blessed the barter deal between countries they describe as Beijing's satellites.

"Given the primitive technological infrastructure in both countries (Pakistan and North Korea), only the credulous would believe that both these countries developed their offensive capabilities indigenously, or that it is purely accidental that North Korea is the principal tormentor of Japan and Pakistan of India," contends M D Nalapat.

According to Nalapat, professor of geopolitics at the Manipal Academy of Higher Education, in southern Karnataka state, Beijing uses Pakistan and North Korea as "proxy nuclear and missile states" to further its own strategic interests.

India's outspoken defence minister, George Fernandes, has minced no words in denouncing China as the "mother of Pakistan's bomb" and New Delhi has acknowledged that its own missile and nuclear programs are aimed at China rather than Pakistan.

Much of what India regards as evidence of Pakistan's proliferation links emanates from the seizure in June 1999 by Indian customs of a North Korean vessel 'Ku Wol San' bound for the Pakistani port of Karachi at Kandla port in western Gujarat state.

Apparently, the bulk of the cargo in the vessel consisted of missile components and production material for North Korea's 'Nodong' missile, on which Pakistan's medium-range, nuclear capable Ghauri is based. Both missiles draw heavily from Chinese technology.

The seizure followed a tipoff to Indian authorities and came four months after the U.S. House of Representatives was told that the best way to tackle North Korean missile exports was by interdicting them on the high seas.

The man who presented that report was Richard Armitage, who was later appointed assistant defense secretary and tasked to lead international efforts to defuse a military standoff between nuclear-armed India and Pakistan in May.

Armitage extracted a promise from Musharraf that he would permanently end cross-border infiltration across the Line of Control (LoC), which separates Indian Kashmir from the Pakistan-controlled portion of the former princely state.

The June 1999 seizure of the North Korean vessel provided proof that Pakistan had entered into a deal with Pyongyang to barter its nuclear technology, miniaturized for use in nuclear warheads, in exchange for missile technology and components.

Commenting on the alleged barter, the South Korean newspaper 'Chungang Ilbo' then quoted a defense ministry official who said North Korea was bent on obtaining materials on miniaturized warhead technology from Pakistan, which tested these devices in May 1998.

According to the Federation of American Scientists (FAS), dedicated to ending the global arms race, Pakistan's Ghauri missile "appears to be a derivative of the North Korean Nodong design" and "represents both an opportunity to use heavier uranium bombs on ballistic missiles as well as to deliver nuclear warheads to targets across much of India."

North Korean involvement in Pakistan's nuclear and missile program was first suspected after the mysterious June 1998 murder in Islamabad of Kim Sin-ae, wife of Kang Thae-yun, a key figure in the missiles- for- nuclear- technology deal, according to Indian analysts.

Newspapers cited diplomatic sources as saying that Kim was killed by North Korean agents working at Pakistan's Khan Research laboratories on suspicion that she had provided details of the strategic weapons deals to western intelligence agencies.

Pakistan has never acknowledged the North Korean link and has always maintained that its nuclear and missile technologies are completely indigenous.

India's anxieties regarding China and Pakistan, with both of which it has fought costly wars, has been to support -- and seek protection under -- Washington's restructured "Star Wars" missile defense system under President George W. Bush.