Washington, July 7ANI): Abdul Qadeer Khan, the founder of Pakistan's nuclear bomb programme, has said that North Korea bribed top military officials in Islamabad to obtain access to sensitive nuclear technology in the late 1990s.
Khan has made available documents that he says support his claim that he personally transferred more than 3 million dollars in payments by North Korea to senior officers in the Pakistani military, which he says subsequently approved his sharing of technical know-how and equipment with North Korean scientists, The Washington Post reports.
Khan also has released what he says is a copy of a North Korean official's 'secret' July 15, 1998 letter to him written in English, which spells out details of the clandestine deal.
The "3 millions dollars have already been paid" to one Pakistani military official and "half a million dollars" and some jewellery had been given to a second official, says the letter, which carries the apparent signature of North Korean Workers Party Secretary Jon Byong Ho.
The text also says: "Please give the agreed documents, components, etc. to a ... [North Korean Embassy official in Pakistan] to be flown back when our plane returns after delivery of missile components."
Some Western intelligence officials and other experts have said that they think the letter is authentic, and that it offers confirmation of a transaction they have long suspected but could never prove, the report said.
While the North Korean government did not respond to requests for comment about the letter, Pakistani officials, including those named as recipients of the cash, have called the letter a fake, the report added.
Jehangir Karamat, a former Pakistani military chief named as the recipient of the 3-million-dollar payment, said in an e-mail from Lahore that the letter's allegations were "malicious with no truth in them whatsoever," and that Khan, as part of his defence against allegations of personal responsibility for illicit nuclear proliferation, had tried "to shift blame on others."
The other official named in the letter, retired Lt. Gen. Zulfiqar Khan, called it "a fabrication."
If the letter is genuine, it would reveal a remarkable instance of corruption related to nuclear weapons, the report said.
US officials have worried for decades about the potential involvement of elements of Pakistan's military in illicit nuclear proliferation, partly because terrorist groups in the region and governments of other countries are eager to acquire an atomic bomb or the capacity to build one. (ANI)
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