Pakistan dismisses North Korea arms deal report

24/11/2002| IslamWeb

Pakistan on Sunday strongly denied a report that it had helped North Korea develop its nuclear weapons programme in return for missile technology that would strengthen its hand against India. "There is no truth in these reports whatsoever," said presidential spokesman Major-General Rashid Qureshi.

"I do not know where the New York Times gets its information from. I am convinced that they need to update their intelligence gathering system," he told Reuters.

The newspaper said in a report on its Web site on Saturday that the relationship between North Korea and Pakistan "now appears much deeper and more dangerous than the United States and its Asian allies first suspected".

Quoting unnamed sources in Washington, Pakistan and South Korea , it reported Pyongyang had provided Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf with missile parts allowing him to build a nuclear arsenal able to reach "every strategic site in India".

In return Islamabad provided North Korea with designs for gas centrifuges and machinery needed to make highly enriched uranium for the country's latest nuclear weapons project.

"If the country has cooperated (with North Korea on nuclear weaponry) we would have known," Qureshi said.

"When these reports first came out I spoke to the president, so it is not as if we do not know about them."

General Musharraf, who has just formally handed power to a civilian government in Pakistan after three years at the helm, is a key ally of U.S. President George W. Bush in his campaign against the Taliban, al Qaeda and its leader Osama bin Laden .

Musharraf backed the U.S. military campaign in neighbouring Afghanistan  after the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington last year.

He has also allowed U.S. forces to operate out of an air base in Pakistan and there are U.S. military and intelligence personnel hunting al Qaeda and Taliban operatives inside Pakistan, close to the Afghan border.

PHOTO CAPTION

Pakistan President General Pervez Musharraf (C) greets guests following the swearing-in ceremony of the country's new prime minister at the Presidential Palace in Islamabad on November 23. REUTERS/B.K. Banga