International inspectors have discovered evidence that North Korea secretly provided Libya with nearly two tons of uranium in early 2001, The New York Times reported on Sunday.
Citing unnamed US officials and European diplomats familiar with the intelligence, the newspaper said that if confirmed, the transaction would be the first known case in which the North Korean government has sold a key ingredient for manufacturing atomic weapons to another country.
The report said a giant cask of uranium hexafluoride was turned over to the United States by the Libyans earlier this year as part of Libya’s agreement to give up his nuclear programme, and the Americans identified Pakistan as the likely source.
But in recent weeks the International Atomic Energy Agency has found strong evidence that the uranium came from North Korea, basing its conclusion on interviews of members of the secret nuclear supplier network set up by Abdul Qadeer Khan, the former head of Pakistan’s main nuclear laboratory, The Times said.
The uranium shipped to Libya could not be used as nuclear fuel unless it was enriched in centrifuges, which the Libyans were constructing as part of a $100-million programme to purchase equipment from the Khan network, according to the report.
If enriched, the fuel obtained by Libya could produce a single nuclear weapon, the paper said, citing unnamed experts.
But the Libyan discovery suggests that North Korea may be capable of producing far larger quantities, especially because the country maintains huge uranium mines, The Times pointed out.
The classified evidence has touched off a race among the world’s intelligence services to explore whether North Korea has made similar clandestine sales to other nations or perhaps even to terror groups seeking atomic weapons, the report said.
”The North Koreans have been selling missiles for years to many countries,” the paper quotes one senior Bush administration official as saying. ”Now, we have to look at their trading network in a very different context, to see if something much worse was happening as well.”
Speaking in Crawford, Texas, White House spokesperson Trent Duffy did not comment on the specifics of the report.
But he said it validated ”the United States policy for North Korean to disarm in a complete, verifiable and irreversible fashion”.
”It is imperative,” Duffy said. ”That is also why we are working on the proliferation security initiative to ensure that the illicit trading of weapons of mass destruction is halted and reversed.” ‒ Sapa-AFP