Whether true or not, these kind of stories, and the shenanigans of AQ Khan, are not helping Pakistan cause, and putting credence to stories that Pakistan cannot be trusted with its Nuclear Weapons.
Bhutto said to be nuclear smuggler
THE former Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto, on a state visit to North Korea in 1993, smuggled in critical data on uranium enrichment to help ease the way for a missile deal with Pyongyang, a journalist who was close to the assassinated politician says.
The smuggling claim was made during conversations that Shyam Bhatia had with Ms Bhutto in 2003 and is contained in his book Goodbye, Shahzadi, published in India last month. Ms Bhutto was killed in December while campaigning to win back the prime minister’s post.
The account, if verified, could advance the timeline for North Korea’s interest in uranium enrichment. David Albright, president of the Institute for Science and International Security, a nuclear weapons research organisation, said the assertion “makes sense” because there were signs of “funny procurements” in the late 1980s by North Korea that suggested a nascent effort to assemble a uranium enrichment project.
Pakistan - and in particular a nuclear smuggling ring run by the Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan, who was instrumental in developing Pakistan’s nuclear bomb - has long been suspected as a source of expertise for North Korea, but such high-level government involvement has always been denied.
Bhatia is an investigative reporter who has written four other books, including one of the earliest accounts of India’s nuclear program. Bhatia said he first met Ms Bhutto at Oxford University in 1974 and kept contact with her until just weeks before she was killed.
Selig Harrison, a specialist on North Korea at the Centre for International Policy, said Bhatia’s account was credible because he knew Bhutto well and was a “reputable Indian journalist”.
In his book, Bhatia says that Ms Bhutto brought up the North Korea visit during a discussion in 2003 about her difficulties with Pakistan’s military. “Let me tell you something,” she said, before telling Bhatia to turn off his tape recorder. “I have done more for my country than all the military chiefs of Pakistan combined.”
At the time, Pakistan was in need of new missile technology that would counter improvements in India’s missiles.
Ms Bhutto said she was asked to carry “critical nuclear data” to hand over in Pyongyang as part of a barter deal.
“Before leaving she shopped for an overcoat with the ‘deepest possible pockets’ into which she transferred CDs containing the uranium data the North Koreans wanted,” Bhatia wrote. “She implied with a glint in her eye that she had acted as a two-way courier, bringing North Korean missile information on CDs back with her on the return journey.”