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Musharraf retains ties with N Korea
By Andrew Ward in Seoul
Published: February 19 2004 4:00 | Last Updated: February 19 2004 4:00
Pakistan has been embarrassed by revelations that one of its scientists leaked nuclear secrets to North Korea, but it appears that General Pervez Musharraf, the Pakistani president, has not severed ties with the communist country that was once among Islamabad's favourite arms-trading partners.
North Korea's state media revealed yesterday that Gen Musharraf sent a birthday greeting to Kim Jong-il, the North Korean leader, when he turned 62 on Monday, together with flowers from the Pakistani embassy in Pyongyang. Gen Musharraf's message expressed hope that friendship between the countries would "strengthen ceaselessly", the report said.
The greeting followed the confession by Abdul Qadeer Khan, the pioneer of Pakistan's nuclear programme, that he secretly sold nuclear knowhow to North Korea, Libya and Iran.
In an interview with the Financial Times this week, Gen Musharraf denied allegations that Pakistan had provided nuclear expertise to North Korea in return for missile technology.
However, the extent of Pakistan's relationship with North Korea will come under fresh scrutiny next week when the US, China, Japan, Russia and the two Koreas gather in Beijing for a second round of talks about Pyongyang's nuclear weapons programme.
A priority for discussion will be the highly enriched uranium (HEU) programme that North Korea allegedly set up with help from Mr Khan.
Diplomats in Seoul said the US was privately putting pressure on Pakistan to provide information about Mr Khan's dealings with North Korea, to strengthen its negotiating position in next week's talks. "The big question is how much information has the US got from Pakistan?" said a senior Asian official.
"Washington needs to present some evidence that proves the HEU programme beyond doubt. "I am worried that the talks could be derailed by a clash over HEU."
Pyongyang's denials that it possesses an HEU programme have emerged as a serious obstacle to the diplomatic process because the US will not accept any settlement to end the nuclear crisis unless it includes dismantlement of the uranium enrichment facilities.
North Korea admits operating a plutonium-based nuclear programme and has offered to freeze it in return for economic rewards from the US. But Pyongyang has refused to discuss the alleged HEU programme.
It was the US allegation in October 2002 that North Korea was developing a clandestine HEU programme that caused the collapse of a 1994 arms-control deal, under which the plutonium-based facilities had been frozen. Since then, North Korea has withdrawn from the nuclear non-proliferation treaty and resumed production and reprocessing of plutonium, with some estimates that Pyongyang could now possess enough nuclear material for up to eight bombs.


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Pakistani ring 'fed Libya nuclear parts'
By John Burton in Singapore, Stephen Fidler and Mark Huband in London and Farhan Bokhari in Islamabad
Published: February 20 2004 21:51 | Last Updated: February 20 2004 21:51
A Pakistani-led black-market network airlifted radioactive material to Libya in 2001 aboard a Pakistani airliner, a Malaysian police report said on Friday, as a new study from the international nuclear watchdog described a secret Libyan nuclear programme spanning two decades.
The International Energy Agency said Libya had successfully produced a small amount of plutonium and imported low- enriched uranium as part of its programme, diplomats who had seen the report said.
The IAEA's report, which will be considered by its board next week, discloses that Libya's nuclear abilities were further developed than UN inspectors had thought when its programme came to light last year. Libya agreed to give up its weapons of mass destruction programmes in December after negotiations with the US and Britain.
In the Malaysian report, the country's inspector-general of police said the airlifting to Libya of uranium hexafluoride, used as a feedstock for centrifuges that enrich uranium, took place in 2001.
The investigation into Malaysian involvement in the network, drawn largely from interviews from Bukhari Sayed Abu Tahir, a Sri Lankan-born businessmen at its heart, also says a number of centrifuge units - possibly Dutch-derived P-1 models - were sent direct by air to Libya from Pakistan in 2001-02.

In other disclosures, Mr Tahir said he had organised the shipment of two containers of used centrifuge units from Pakistan to Iran, via Dubai, in 1994-95. The cost was $3m.
The report says the shipment was made at the behest of a Pakistani scientist who also told Mr Tahir about the air shipments to Libya.
The scientist is not named, but is referred to on one occasion by the initials AQK. Abdul-Qadeer Khan, sometimes called the father of the Islamic atomic bomb, admitted this month he had given nuclear technology to other countries and was pardoned by General Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan's president.
According to senior western and Pakistani officials, George Tenet, director of CIA, secretly paid a one-day visit to Pakistan last week to discuss the investigations into the network. The visit has not been confirmed by either of the two governments.

The Malaysian investigation began in November after an approach to the director of the Malaysian Special Branch, Bukit Aman, from representatives of the US Central Intelligence Agency and Britain's MI6.
Components thought to be destined for Libya's uranium enrichment programme had been confiscated aboard a German ship in October. Five shipping containers carried components manufactured in Malaysia by Scope, a subsidiary of the Scomi Group.
The report absolved Scope, saying it had not violated Malaysian law. Scomi is owned by Kamaluddin Abdullah, the only son of Malaysia's prime minister, Abdullah Badawi.