India has our N-design: Musharraf

Pakistan President General Pervez Musharraf has said that India?s uranium enrichment programme was likely based on the Pakistani centrifuge design.

Pakistan President General Pervez Musharraf has said that India’s uranium enrichment programme was likely based on the Pakistani centrifuge design.

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In his book, In The Line of Fire, some excerpts of which was quoted by The Nation, Musharraf said during 1994-95, nuclear scientist A Q Khan had ordered the manufacture of 200 P-1 centrifuges that had been discarded by Pakistan in the mid 80s.

These were dispatched to Dubai for onward distribution, which also hired several Indians who remain untraceable now.

As such, it could be possible that the Indian uranium enrichment programme might have its roots in the Dubai-based network and be a copy of the Pakistani centrifuge design, Musharraf said.

“In early 1999, I started seeing the first signs of some suspicious activities by A Q Khan. Our investigations revealed that Khan had started his activities as far back as 1987 primarily with Iran.

In 1994-95, A Q Khan had ordered the manufacture of 200 P-1 centrifuges that had been discarded by Pakistan in the mid 80s,” Musharraf writes in his memoirs.

“These had been dispatched to Dubai for onward distribution. Khan was running a very personalised underground network of technology transfers around the world with his base in Dubai. The irony is that the Dubai-based network had employed several Indians, some of whom have since vanished."

“There is strong probability that the genesis of the Indian uranium enrichment programme may also have its roots in the Dubai-based network and could be a copy of the Pakistani centrifuge design. This has also been recently alluded to by an eminent US non-proliferation analyst,” Musharraf said.