NYT slams Pak for nuke cooperation with N Korea

Rejecting Islamabad’s claims that it had ended its exchanges with North Korea, it said the US spotted a Pakistani plane picking up North Korea’s missile parts as recently as last summer.

Neither Pakistan nor N Korea has shown the least hesitation about placing unconventional weapons in the hands of ‘‘dangerous’’ dictators, the paper said.

Long shunned by Washington because of its ‘‘links to terrorism, its nuclear weapons programme and autocratic military rule,’’ the paper, said Pakistan has become a ‘‘valued ally’’, mainly by abandoning its support to the Taliban leadership after the Sept 11 attacks on the US.