Мушарраф подтвердил наличие урановой программы у КНДР
Добрый день!
Мушарраф подтвердил, что КНДР получила от Пакистана около десятка центрифуг для использования в параллельной, урановой ядерной программе. Его слова могут служить доказательством наличия у свереокорейцев запасной ядерной программы наряду с широко известной плутониевой и сильно осложнить шестисторонние переговоры в Пекине.
Musharraf details NK nuke efforts
NEW YORK (AP) -- Pakistan's President Gen. Pervez Musharraf has said he believes North Korea obtained "probably a dozen" centrifuges to produce nuclear weapons fuel from a proliferation ring headed by a Pakistani nuclear expert, the New York Times reported Tuesday on its Web site.
However, Musharraf said the results of nearly two years of interrogations of A.Q. Khan, who is regarded as the father of the program that built Pakistan's nuclear bomb, did not yield any evidence that the expert gave North Korea a Chinese-origin design to build a nuclear weapon, the newspaper said.
Musharraf made his comments in an interview with a team of New York Times reporters on Monday, a day before the resumption of six-nation talks in Beijing about North Korea's nuclear weapons program.
Khan confessed in early 2004 that he had spread sensitive technology to Iran, Libya and North Korea without the knowledge of the Pakistani government.
Khan, who is accused of operating an international black market network in weapons technology, was subsequently pardoned by Musharraf but is still under house arrest in Islamabad.
The newspaper said Musharraf's comments, which elaborated on remarks made last month in an interview with Japan's Kyodo news agency, are significant because they tend to confirm the accusations American intelligence officials made against North Korea in 2002 that Pyongyang had secretly launched a second nuclear program to build atomic weapons using uranium technology obtained from Khan's network.
North Korea has repeatedly denied that a second, secret bomb program exists with hidden centrifuges to make bomb-grade uranium.
The newspaper said a dozen centrifuges would not be enough to produce a significant amount of bomb-grade uranium. But American officials say they would have enabled North Korea to build their own weapon based on the Chinese design.
U.S. experts have said that Khan's network not only provided Libya with centrifuges but also with detailed designs for a relatively crude, but workable, nuclear weapon.
The designs apparently were based on a Chinese weapon tested in the 1960s and later leaked to Pakistan. Last year, Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi agreed to give up his country's nuclear weapons program.
Musharraf told the Times that two years of questioning of Khan had not resolved whether the scientist gave the same Chinese bomb design to North Korea and Iran.
"I don't know," he told the newspaper. "Whether he passed these bomb designs to others -- there is no such evidence."
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