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| India-Pakistan |
| The Pakistani-North Korean axis |
| 2004-02-05 |
| Be aware that the author is a former Indian intelligence officer, but almost everything he has written in previous years about the Pak nuke program has been proven in the last couple weeks. Pakistan’s arms supply relationship with North Korea dates back to 1971 when the late Zulfiquar Ali Bhutto, the then Foreign Minister under the late Gen. Yahya Khan, visited Pyongyang and sought North Korean arms supplies to strengthen the Pakistani Armed Forces in the face of a looming war with India. Pakistan then did not have diplomatic relations with North Korea. However, the visit led to the signing of an agreement on September 18, 1971, for the supply of North Korean-made conventional weapons to Pakistan. Under the agreement Pakistan received many shipments of items such as rocket launchers, ammunition etc. In the 1980s, Pakistan also acted as an intermediary in facilitating arms supply agreements concluded by Pyongyang with Libya and Iran. During the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s, North Korea became a principal supplier of weapons to Iran, which was the target of an arms embargo imposed by the Western countries. To escape detection by the Western intelligence agencies, North Korean arms shipments meant for Iran used to be received by sea at Karachi and from there transported in Pakistani trucks to Iran across Balochistan. Amongst the supplies made by North Korea to Iran via Karachi were over 100 Scud B (known as the Hwasong 5 in North Korea) ballistic missiles and equipment for the assembly, maintenance and ultimate production of these missiles in Iranian territory. In this transaction, Pakistan played a double game. On the one hand, the then ruling military regime of the late Zia-ul-Haq collaborated with the USA’s Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the Iraqi intelligence in destabilisation operations directed at the Sunni Balochis living on the Iranian side of the border. At the same time, it clandestinely allowed the transport by road of North Korean arms and ammunition meant for use by the Iranian Army against the Iraqis. Pakistani army officers were also sent to Libya to help in the training of Libyan Army officers in the use and maintenance of North Korean weaponry. During the Zia regime, Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and its North Korean counterpart collaborated closely for the clandestine acquisition of nuclear and missile-related equipment and technology from the then West Germany and other Western countries. Since North Korea did not have either a presence or the funds and other capability to be able to indulge in clandestine procurement from the West, it gave lists of its requirements to the ISI, which procured them and passed them on. This co-operation between the two countries, the foundation for which was laid by Z. A.Bhutto, was further strengthened during the two tenures of Benazir Bhutto as Prime Minister. It was during this time that Pakistan failed in its efforts to develop an indigenous missile production capability (the Hatf series) and it sought Chinese and North Korean supplies of missiles as well as technology for their production in Pakistan. Earlier, during the first tenure (1990-93) of Nawaz Sharif as the Prime Minister, Lt.Gen. Javed Nasir, the Director-General of the ISI, visited Pyongyang to sign a secret agreement with the North Korean intelligence for the joint production through reverse engineering of the US-made, shoulder-fired Stinger missiles and their batteries. Some of the missiles in the stock of the Pakistani army were given to the North Korean intelligence for this purpose. Iranian intelligence agreed to fund this project. It is not known whether this project succeeded in producing an imitated version of the Stingers and their batteries. The ISI was particularly interested in the batteries because it was unable to use a large number of Stinger missiles in its stocks since the life-period of the batteries supplied by the USA before 1988 to enable the use of these missiles against the Soviet troops in Afghanistan had expired. Throughout the 1990s, whoever was at the helm in Islamabad, the trilateral co-operation involving Pakistan, Iran and North Korea in the development and production of the Scud—C (called Hwasong 6 in North Korea) and the No-Dong missiles continued without interruption despite Teheran’s anger against Pakistan for backing the Taliban and for failing to prevent the periodic massacre of Pakistani Shias and Iranian nationals by the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LEJ). The visit of Benazir to Beijing and Pyongyang in December, 1993, was followed by the visits of a number of North Korean personalities to Pakistan in 1994-95 to discuss bilateral nuclear and missile co-operation. Important amongst these visits were: * During April,1994, Pak Chung-kuk, deputy to the Supreme People’s Assembly, visited Iran and Pakistan at the head of a team of officials of the North Korean Foreign Ministry and the nuclear and missile establishment.These visits contributed to the speeding up of Pakistan’s missile programme and culminated in the firing of the so-called Ghauri missile by the KRL on April 6, 1998, which was projected by Pakistan as its own indigenously-developed missile. Despite this, the US State Department imposed two-year sanctions against the KRL and the Changgwang Sinyong Corporation on April 24, 1998, which expired on April 23, 2000. The KRL had earlier been the subject of similar sanctions imposed by the State Department in August 1993 for its clandestine procurement of the M-11 missiles from China. Thus, the sanctions imposed on March 24, 2003, are the third against the KRL. These sanctions have had no effect either on Pakistan or North Korea. The KRL and the North Korean Corporation are State-owned entities, run and managed by officers of the Armed Forces of the two countries. Pakistan had used a US-supplied aircraft of its Air Force for transporting the missiles to Pakistan. The missiles and other weapons sent by North Korea to Iran in the 1980s had transited through Pakistani territory, escorted by the Pakistan Army. North Korean nuclear scientists witnessed Pakistan’s Chagai nuclear tests of May, 1998. Pakistan has been helping North Korea in the development of its uranium enrichment facility. The two countries have been training each other’s nuclear and missile scientists in their respective establishments. Pakistan’s diplomatic mission in Pyongyang is generally headed and staffed by serving or retired army officers, who had previously served in the clandestine nuclear and missile procurement set-up of the ISI. The latest instance in this regard is Maj.Gen. (retd) Fazle Ghafoor. |
| Posted by:Paul Moloney |
| #1 Need to keep the Paks booger close, that we might know we they cough. |
| Posted by: Shipman 2004-2-5 6:31:21 PM |