Dear Leader146;s dear friends

The Pakistan Army was in all likelihood privy to Khan8217;s role in proliferation activities. Khan has reportedly disclosed that in addition to Pervez Musharraf, two other army chiefs, Abdul Waheed and his successor, Jehangir Karamat, knew and approved of his nuclear dealings with North Korea. The western media has revealed that Benazir Bhutto had traveled to North Korea at the request of General Abdul Waheed. General Karamat also secretly visited North Korea in December 1997.

Authoritative reports tell us that North Korea placed orders for centrifuge components from 1997 to 1999, and Khan and his associates provided direct technical assistance to that country from 1998 onwards. The western media has extensively reported how P-1 and P-2 machines were transferred clandestinely from Pakistan to North Korea along with drawings, sketches, technical data and uranium hexafluoride gas 8212; the feedstock for gas centrifuges. It was also widely reported that many of the shipments to North Korea were flown directly from Pakistan using chartered and Pakistan Air Force planes. In exchange, North Korea supplied missile technology.

Not surprisingly, attempts have been made by Pakistan to deny its involvement. Musharraf said in February 2003, on the sidelines of the NAM Summit in Kuala Lumpur, 8220;We work on solid fuel and they operate on liquid fuel, we do not need to exchange anything with them,8221; and 8220;We have designs far superior to North Korea.8221; However, Benazir Bhutto had admitted to having gone to North Korea in 1993 to bring blueprints of North Korean missiles.

In July 2002 US spy satellites spotted a Pakistani Air Force C-130 at Pyongyang airport. The cargo: missiles for Pakistan. Transfer of missiles from North Korea to Pakistan is reported to have continued till March 2003. In April 2003, Japan8217;s Sankei Shimbun reported that US satellites and spy networks in March that year had detected North Korean exports of some 10 Scud B missiles to Pakistan.

In an interview with a Japanese daily on August 24, 2005, Musharraf partially admitted 8212; for the first time 8212; that Khan had provided uranium enrichment centrifuge designs and machines to North Korea, but added that he was not sure of nuclear material transfer. On the issue of technology swap, he said, 8220;We got some artillery pieces from North Korea, once upon a time, many years ago. 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.8221;

There is enough circumstantial evidence to suggest that Pakistan played a crucial role in North Korea8217;s nuclear programme. Khan has disclosed that during one of the trips to North Korea he was taken to a secret nuclear plant and shown nuclear devices.

According to a report by the Center for Korean Affairs, a chartered plane carrying 20 North Korean nuclear scientists took off from Islamabad airport on June 10, 1998. The scientists were reportedly present at the nuclear test in Balochistan.

Starting with the North Korean supply of artillery, munitions and military equipment to Islamabad, the Pakistan-North Korea pact for arms transfer is now some three decades old. The initial trade relationship might have been based on North Korean needs for hard currency and Pakistani demands for army equipment. This later turned into a barter arrangement. The watershed in terms of state-level authorisation for covert projects is probably the 1993 Benazir Bhutto visit, followed by A.Q. Khan8217;s trip.

On nuclear technology transfers, Bhutto has tried to duck responsibility saying that 8220;it is quite possible that in 1998, when we were facing a financial crunch because of our nuclear tests, this exchange of nuclear technology for missiles might have happened, but not by us.8221; In fact, the Pakistani economy was passing through a rough phase in the 1990s because of the lack of assistance similar to what they got from the US during the Afghan war. Bhutto8217;s admission not only shows how Pakistan got into 8216;the bartering8217; relationship with Korea, it is also suggestive of a collaboration between the two 8216;determined8217; proliferators.

Meanwhile, North Korea has moved ahead on the path of trading missile and nuclear technologies and is fast stepping into the shoes of its benefactors. Pakistan had been the centre of two-way parallel proliferation activities 8212; gaining from outside and simultaneously trading outside 8212; and North Korea seems to replicate the trend.

In this context, it needs to be mentioned that one of the variants of the Iranian Shahab missiles is believed to be a variant of the North Korean Nodong missiles. Apart from Pakistan and Iran, other known beneficiaries of North Korean missile supplies are Libya, Syria and Yemen. In his book Nuclear Terror: The Ultimate Preventable Catastrophe, Graham Allison has disclosed that the North Koreans set up a company, New World Trading Slovakia, in Bratislava, to buy materials for their own nuclear programme and to sell missile technology to countries such as Egypt, Libya, Syria, Iran and Vietnam. The Slovakian police raided the company run by two North Koreans.

Again, the US National Security Council representative, Michael Green, during his Beijing visit in February 2005, presented top Chinese officials with evidence showing that North Korea had produced several tonnes of a uranium compound that had landed in Libya.

Whatever may be the solution to the crisis engendered by North Korea8217;s nuclear test, Pakistan will always be considered as part of the problem.

The writer is associate fellow, Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses, New Delhi. Views expressed are his own