The US Vice-President said today that he was afraid that North Korea could supply nuclear weapons technology to al-Qaeda or other terrorist groups. Dick Cheney said that Washington was confident that Pyongyang had a nuclear weapons programme and that al-Qaeda and other groups had sought to acquire the technology. He said: "We worry that... North Korea could well, for example, provide this kind of technology to someone else or possibly, say, a terrorist organisation. We know that there are terrorist organisations out there like al-Qaeda that have sought to acquire these kinds of weapons in the past." He described North Korea as "one of the most serious problems in the region today" and said that the removal of all its nuclear capabilities was essential to the peace and stability of East Asia and the world.
North Korea denies this but US reports this week quoted Abdul Qadeer Khan, the disgraced father of Pakistan's atomic bomb, as telling his Pakistani Government interrogators that he was shown three nuclear devices at a secret underground plant when he visited North Korea five years ago. The danger of North Korea exporting is nuclear technology added to the urgency of diplomatic efforts to stop its programme, Mr Cheney said. He expressed US gratitude for Beijing’s leading role in organising recent six-nation talks on the issue. In Beijing, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman, said that Chinese leaders appealed to Mr Cheney to be "flexible and practical" in discussions on setting up the next round of talks. |