Author: Shishir Gupta
Publication: India Today
Date: November 4, 2002
URL: http://www.indiatoday.com/itoday/20021104/diplomacy.shtml&SET=T
Pakistan's covert involvement in
North Korea's nuclear weapons programme poses a serious challenge to the
US as well as India
The telephone lines between South
Block and the US State Department have been burning hot ever since India
launched coercive diplomacy against Pakistan in the aftermath of the December
13 terrorist attack on Parliament. So External Affairs Minister Yashwant
Sinha was not surprised when his US counterpart Colin Powell called him
at 9.40 p.m. on October 17. The topic for discussion was Pakistan but for
once the focus was not India-Pakistan relations or Kashmir. It was the
emerging nuclear nexus between India's neighbour and a prominent member
of what US President George W. Bush calls the "axis of evil"- North Korea.
Sources reveal that Powell and Sinha
shared their serious concerns over the barter arrangement between Islamabad
and Pyongyang, in which Pakistan had secretly supplied sensitive nuclear
technology in return for missile technology from North Korea. The deal
came to light after Korean officials admitted to a nuclear weapons programme
during a meeting with US envoy James Kelly on October 4. A day after his
talk with Sinha, Powell read the riot act to Pakistan President Pervez
Musharraf on Islamabad's subterfuge. In an interview to an American TV
channel, Powell said, "I had a very specific conversation with Musharraf
on Friday where he assured us-400 per cent, he said-that Pakistan was not
involved in nuclear proliferation. I have a relationship with President
Musharraf that I believe he understands the consequences of such behaviour,
and I take his word for it."
The diplomatic community in the
US see this as an overt sign of Washington's pressure on Pakistan. Under
the veiled threat of sanctions and non-proliferation laws, the US would
now seek greater control over Pakistan's nuclear programme. In case of
North Korea, the US has adopted a more restrained approach. This is evident
from the fact that America shipped heavy fuel oil for nuclear reactors
in North Korea even after Pyongyang's confession this month.
For Delhi, the revelation that Pakistan
was clandestinely acquiring weapons of mass destruction from North Korea
comes with a feeling of deja vu. At the peak of the Kargil War in 1999,
Indian customs officials seized a North Korean ship Ku Wol San at Kandla
which was carrying 170 tonnes of metal casings and missile components from
Pyongyang to Karachi. It is now evident that North Korea also sold missile
technology to Syria and Libya. The consignment included 22 technical instruction
manuals in Korean language that have given India a deep insight into Pyongyang's
missile prowess and Pakistan's missile capabilities.
The catch was instrumental in establishing
"back channel" contacts between Delhi and Washington at the time when bilateral
ties were lying in deep freeze due to Pokhran II in 1998. To date Delhi
has studiously kept these "contacts" away from the prying eyes of intelligence
agencies.
K. Santhanam, director, Institute
for Defence Studies and Analyses, Delhi, says that India has known about
the North Korea-Pakistan nexus since Pakistani nuclear scientist A.Q. Khan
brought 10-12 Nodong missiles from Pyongyang between 1992 and 1994. The
Pakistani 1,500-km range Ghauri (Hatf V) missile is an avatar of the Korean
Nodong nuclear-payload delivery system. The missile for nuclear technology
agreement was apparently sealed during the then prime minister Benazir
Bhutto's quiet visit to Pyongyang via Beijing in December 1993.
It is apparent that Pakistan started
looking at North Korea for missile technology after China signed a pact
with the US in April 1984 against arms trade. Pyongyang also signed a pact
with Washington in 1994, under which North Korea was to cap its nuclear
weapons programme in return for US cooperation in production of nuclear
energy. Clearly, the two pacts have been hit hard with the evidence that
China, Russia and Pakistan helped North Korea in its uranium enrichment
programme. Russia, on its part, denies it has anything to do with Pyongyang's
quest for a nuclear bomb.
Although India has asked for an
investigation into the Islamabad-Pyongyang nuclear nexus, it is clear the
North Korean nuclear programme has the Pakistani stamp on it. This is evident
from the fact that North Korea abandoned its pursuit of a plutonium-based
bomb in the early 1990s and followed the Pakistani route of acquiring a
weapon through the uranium enrichment process. Western intelligence reports
say Pakistan supplied gas centrifuges-used in uranium enrichment-and key
nuclear weapons technology to North Korea. "It occurred to us that there
might be a complementarity of interest between North Korea and Pakistan,"
says Robert Einhorn, former US assistant secretary of state for nuclear
non-proliferation. Santhanam believes that a Pakistani airline, run by
a retired air force officer having close links with the ISI, was used to
ferry the nuclear technology from Islamabad to Pyongyang.
With the bomb now tumbling out of
the closet, the US is putting pressure on China to use its influence with
its "all-weather friend" in Islamabad to stop nuclear proliferation and
on North Korea for a roll-back of its nuclear programme. The nuclear issue
topped the agenda of Chinese President Ziang Zemin during his trip to the
US last week. It seems the US will use Chinese leverage to curtail the
North Korean nuke programme just as it used Pakistani influence on the
Taliban in Afghanistan last year. And as in the case of the Taliban, Washington
cannot resolve the problem by simply talking.
(with Anil Padmanabhan in New York)
