FM Kasuri denies Pakistani nuclear scientists in North Korea

QINGDAO, China (AFP) Jun 21, 2004
Pakistani Foreign Minister Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri said Monday he had no knowledge of Pakistani scientists working in North Korea to help develop its nuclear weapons program.

"I have no knowledge of that. This sort of misinformation or disinformation continues to go on," he said on the sidelines of a gathering of foreign ministers from 22 Asian countries in the east Chinese city of Qingdao.

"We have every reason to stop proliferation. There are eight nuclear powers, we don't want a ninth power. It's against our own interest," he said.

Kasuri's remark came after South Korea's Yonhap news agency said North Korea might have achieved a higher level of technology for enriched uranium with the help of foreign scientists.

Kasuri said he had not seen the report.

Yonhap cited the Seoul-based Korea Institute for National Unification as saying some among a group of nine Pakistani scientists missing since they left their country six years ago could now be in North Korea.

North Korea's highly enriched uranium program was at an early stage in its development, Jeon Sung-Hun, a researcher at the institute, told Yonhap.

"However, we should be prepared to find that North Korea has received a level of technology and cooperation from Pakistan, Russia, Kazakhstan, Ukraine and Belarus which surpasses general expectations," he added.

Pakistani nuclear expert Abdul Qadeer Khan said in April that he had visited North Korea in 1999 and saw "three nuclear devices" at a secret underground plant.

Khan, a one-time national hero credited with making Pakistan a nuclear power, has admitted selling nuclear secrets abroad but was pardoned by President Pervez Musharraf.

In May, the New York Times reported that North Korea secretly provided Libya in early 2001 with nearly two tonnes of uranium which can be enriched to nuclear bomb grade.

The nuclear stand-off on the Korean peninsula flared in October 2002 when Washington accused North Korea of running a secret nuclear program based on enriched uranium.

North Korea has acknowledged having a plutonium program but denies that it is enriching uranium to make nuclear fuel. It has rejected US demands for a complete dismantling of its nuclear programs without receiving rewards first.

WAR.WIRE