CIA Report Studies Pakistan-North Korea Cooperation

North Korea probably received the equipment it needed to produce a uranium-based nuclear weapon through Pakistan’s main nuclear facility, the Khan Research Laboratories, according to a CIA report presented last week to the White House, the New York Times reported (see GSN, March 1).

The report is based, in part, on information from top Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan, who has reportedly confessed to transferring nuclear technology to North Korea, along with Iran and Libya, according to U.S. and Asian officials. The CIA report concludes that North Korea received what one U.S. official described as the “complete package” — raw uranium hexafluoride, uranium enrichment centrifuges and nuclear weapons designs — in exchange for more than $60 million.

U.S. intelligence agencies have not been able to determine where North Korea has placed its uranium enrichment facilities, leading to concern that the sites could not be attacked if multilateral talks on Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons efforts fail, according to the Times. Intelligence agencies are also unsure as to when North Korea’s uranium enrichment facilities would be able to produce enough enriched uranium to build a weapon, the Times reported.

“The best guess is still in the next year or two, but it is a guess,” a senior U.S. official said. “That does not leave much time to find this thing and shut it down,” the official added (David Sanger, New York Times, March 14).

Meanwhile, the International Atomic Energy Agency yesterday called on Pakistan to provide more cooperation in the agency’s efforts to investigate Iran’s nuclear program.

Pakistan has “been cooperating, but I still need more cooperation” in allowing “environmental sampling” to compare centrifuge components sold through the international nuclear network to Iran, IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei said (Michael Adler, Agence France-Presse/Yahoo!News, March 15).

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