Author: David E. Sanger
Publication: The New York Times
Date: September 13, 2005
President Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan said
yesterday that he believed that a Pakistani nuclear expert who ran the world's
largest proliferation ring exported "probably a dozen" centrifuges
to North Korea to produce nuclear weapons fuel. He added, however, that after
two years of interrogations there was still no evidence about whether the
expert also gave North Korea a Chinese-origin design to build a nuclear weapon.
General Musharraf's comments, which echo statements
he made last month to Japanese reporters, were made in an interview a day
before the United States was to reopen talks with North Korea about its nuclear
program in Beijing.
The Pakistani leader's comments about the
results of the interrogations of the expert, A. Q. Khan, a national hero who
is under a loose form of house arrest in Islamabad, are significant because
they tend to confirm the accusations American intelligence officials made
against North Korea in 2002.
At that time, North Korean officials appeared
to confirm that they had secretly started up a second nuclear program to build
atomic weapons using uranium technology obtained from Mr. Khan's network,
as an alternative to a plutonium program that was frozen under a 1994 agreement
with the United States. But ever since, North Korea has denied that a second,
secret bomb program exists.
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 copy the design and build their
own.
The Bush administration has insisted that
unless North Korea agrees to give up both programs - and agrees to a broad
program of inspections - no comprehensive nuclear deal can be reached. North
Korea has suggested it may be willing to give up its older plutonium program,
based at a huge nuclear complex located at Yongbyon, but has reiterated its
denials that it has hidden centrifuges to make bomb-grade uranium.
In a wide-ranging discussion in New York with
three journalists from The New York Times, General Musharraf also discussed
Pakistan's tentative diplomatic openings toward Israel and its efforts to
track down Al Qaeda leaders. He said that the opening to Israel could flourish
"in case there is forward movement" on negotiations between Israel
and the Palestinians, but he said, "this is by no means recognition of
Israel."
Despite protests in Pakistan about the new
initiative, he insisted that his move had met little opposition among mainstream
Muslims in Pakistan, and he is to address a Jewish group for the first time
during his visit here. "What is the harm if I interacted with the Jewish
Congress, knowing their influence here?" he said.
He said it was possible that Osama bin Laden,
the Qaeda leader, is still moving between remote parts of Pakistan and Afghanistan
four years after the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States. "I will not
negate entirely, with confidence, that he is not there," he said. "But
I will never accept anybody who says with confidence that he is there."
He said later that he often asks, "Do you have intelligence, have you
heard him?"
Mr. bin Laden's whereabouts are a particularly
sensitive subject for General Musharraf because Pakistan has been accused
by some intelligence officials of doing a lackluster job of pursuing Qaeda
suspects, stepping up pressure on them when it suits Pakistani interests but
turning down the pressure at other times. He rejected that charge, saying
Mr. bin Laden's power is reduced, no matter where he is.
"I do not think he can influence, because
he is on the run, hiding," General Musharraf said. If Mr. bin Laden is
on the Pakistan-Afghan border, he is switching sides "wherever he sees
danger," General Musharraf added.
He rejected arguments that Pakistan was halfhearted
in its efforts to root out Al Qaeda and remnants of the Taliban, who ruled
Afghanistan until the American-led war there in 2001. "We have almost
eliminated them from our cities," he said. "We have caught about
700 of them, and we have broken their back in the mountains." The groups
no longer operate in the valleys of the Afghan border area, he said, "because
we have occupied them."
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, also
speaking to reporters yesterday at The New York Times, praised General Musharraf
for working in three areas, and said the United States would be supportive:
helping to pursue members of Al Qaeda, creating "diplomatic space"
for operating by reaching out to India and Israel, and working to improve
education and the economy to discourage militancy. "There are parts of
Pakistan that are extremely poor where you get breeding grounds for this kind
of extremism," she said, and the United States would help him deal with
those.
General Musharraf said that, in a meeting
he had yesterday with Ms. Rice, he asked her to move toward a free-trade agreement
with Pakistan. That is likely to meet some resistance in Congress, which derailed
efforts by the Bush administration after the Sept. 11 attacks to aid Pakistan
by lifting restrictions on textile imports.
But he said he made no demands for an agreement
that would match the Bush administration's offer to help India develop a civilian
nuclear power program. India and Pakistan have refused to sign the Nuclear
Nonproliferation Treaty, and that has prevented most forms of nuclear cooperation
with the United States.
In his discussion of Mr. Khan, General Musharraf
said that two years of questioning of Mr. Khan - which the Pakistanis insisted
they would do themselves, rather than allowing the United States to question
him - a critical question had not been resolved: Did the scientist give the
same bomb design to North Korea and Iran that investigators found in Libya,
when it dismantled its uranium program.
"I don't know," he said. "Whether
he passed these bomb designs to others - there is no such evidence."
Steven R. Weisman contributed reporting for
this article.
