 SEOUL - North Korea has exported dangerous nuclear material through the international black-market network of the Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan, knowing that it would end up in Libya, Washington's top negotiator on the North Korean nuclear programs said Wednesday. The negotiator, Christopher Hill, dismissed doubts about North Korea's involvement in proliferating uranium hexafluoride - a sensitive material that can be enriched to make fissile material for nuclear weapons - and the Communist state's intention to run a uranium-enrichment program in addition to its plutonium enterprise. "We do have evidence that what arrived in Libya was actually of North Korean origin," Hill said during a debate sponsored by the Civil Network for a Peaceful Korea, a nongovernmental organization. "We believe that it was brokered through Pakistan, with knowledge that it would end up in Libya." Hill said that U.S. officials believed the North Korean material "came through the A.Q. Khan network," but that "no one is saying that the government of Pakistan is involved."
| Well, not in public anyway |
| Nope. Nope. Ain't gonna say it. Nope... |
Hill, currently the U.S. ambassador in Seoul, leaves for Washington this weekend to assume his new post as assistant secretary of state for East Asian affairs. He made his comments while answering questions from members of South Korean civic groups who questioned whether President George W. Bush's administration was distorting intelligence on North Korea's nuclear activities, including its reported plan to enrich uranium for weapons.
About 15 months ago, Libya turned over to the United States nearly two tons of illicit uranium it had planned to use in atomic weapons. The U.S. government says it believes the uranium most likely came from North Korea. But U.S. officials also told American news organizations that they lacked definitive evidence, prompting doubts about the Bush administration's case against North Korea, particularly given its intelligence failures before the Iraq war. Hill acknowledged that it was difficult to gather intelligence on a closed country like North Korea, but he stressed that the "consequences of underestimating the threat can be very serious." He said the North Koreans "have been making purchases of very, very specialized - and I might add, extremely expensive - equipment whose purpose one has to believe is to have an HEU program, " referring to a highly enriched uranium program. |