ISLAMABAD: North Korea received centrifuges from Pakistan in 2000 in a shipment supervised by the army under the government of President Pervez Musharraf, the nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan said Friday.
Khan said in a telephone interview that the equipment for uranium enrichment had been sent from Pakistan in a North Korean plane loaded under the supervision of Pakistani security officials.
His claims contradicted his confession in 2004 in which he said he had been solely responsible for spreading nuclear technology to Iran, North Korea and Libya. They also contradicted the repeated denials by Pakistan that its army or government knew about Khan's nuclear proliferation activities.
Khan said that the army had "complete knowledge" of the shipment of used P-1 centrifuges to North Korea and that the centrifuges must have been sent with the consent of Musharraf, who was army chief at the time and who had taken power in a coup in 1999.
Army and Foreign Ministry spokesmen declined to comment Friday. Musharraf's spokesman said he would respond to Khan's allegations after speaking with the president.
Khan is regarded as a hero by many in Pakistan for his critical role in the program that gave it the Islamic world's first nuclear bomb in 1998.
After his 2004 confession and televised statement of contrition, Khan was pardoned by Musharraf, but he has been kept under virtual house arrest at his spacious villa in Islamabad.
Asked why he had taken sole responsibility for the nuclear proliferation, Khan said he had been persuaded by friends, including Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain, a major figure in the ruling party at the time, that his doing so would be in the national interest.
North Korea wants fuel faster
North Korea has accused its nuclear negotiating partners of being too slow in shipping fuel oil under an aid-for-disarmament deal, The Associated Press reported Friday from Seoul.
The North's Foreign Ministry says it has abided by the agreement by submitting a declaration of its nuclear program and destroying a cooling tower at its main nuclear complex. It says the countries involved in six-party disarmament talks have not followed through on their end of the bargain.
The energy-starved North was promised aid equivalent to one million tons of heavy fuel oil under the deal. The North said Friday in a statement that it would move to the next phase of the denuclearization process only after receiving more fuel.