Not surprisingly, attempts have been made by Pakistan to deny its involvement. Musharraf said in February 2003, on the sidelines of the NAM Summit in Kuala Lumpur, “We work on solid fuel and they operate on liquid fuel, we do not need to exchange anything with them,” and “We have designs far superior to North Korea.” However, Benazir Bhutto had admitted to having gone to North Korea in 1993 to bring blueprints of North Korean missiles.

In July 2002 US spy satellites spotted a Pakistani Air Force C-130 at Pyongyang airport. The cargo: missiles for Pakistan. Transfer of missiles from North Korea to Pakistan is reported to have continued till March 2003. In April 2003, Japan’s Sankei Shimbun reported that US satellites and spy networks in March that year had detected North Korean exports of some 10 Scud B missiles to Pakistan.

In an interview with a Japanese daily on August 24, 2005, Musharraf partially admitted — for the first time — that Khan had provided uranium enrichment centrifuge designs and machines to North Korea, but added that he was not sure of nuclear material transfer. On the issue of technology swap, he said, “We got some artillery pieces from North Korea, once upon a time, many years ago. We paid for each and every item that we got from North Korea. There was no exchange of knowledge or equipment. That is absolutely wrong.”

There is enough circumstantial evidence to suggest that Pakistan played a crucial role in North Korea’s nuclear programme. Khan has disclosed that during one of the trips to North Korea he was taken to a secret nuclear plant and shown nuclear devices.

... contd.