'Pak helped N Korea build nuke weapons as early as 1990'

North Korea, with the help of Pakistan, may have opened an alternative way to clandestinely build nuclear weapons as early as 1990s by constructing a plant to manufacture a gas needed for uranium enrichment.

North Korea, with the help of Pakistan, may have opened an alternative way to clandestinely build nuclear weapons as early as 1990s by constructing a plant to manufacture a gas needed for uranium enrichment.

HT Image

Pyongyang may have been enriching uranium on a small scale by 2002, with maybe 3,000 or even more centrifuges and Pakistani supplied vital machinery, drawings and technical advice, The Washington Post has reported citing an account by Abdul Qadeer Khan, the father of Pakistan's atomic bomb programme.

The Post quoting US intelligence official said Khan's information adds to their suspicions that North Korea has long pursued the enrichment of uranium in addition to making plutonium for bombs.

The paper quoted the Pakistani scientist as saying that there was tacit agreement between the two governments that his laboratory "would advice and guide them with a centrifuge programme and that the North Koreans would help Pakistan in fitting the nuclear warhead into the Ghauri missile".