US intelligence officials have concluded that Pakistan, a vital ally since last year's terrorist attacks, was a major supplier of critical equipment for North Korea's newly revealed clandestine nuclear weapons program, current and former senior American officials said on Thursday.
The equipment, which may include gas centrifuges used to create weapons-grade uranium, appears to have been part of a barter deal beginning in the late 1990s in which North Korea supplied Pakistan with missiles it could use to counter India's nuclear arsenal, the officials said.
"What you have here," said one official familiar with the intelligence, "is a perfect meeting of interests -- the North had what the Pakistanis needed, and the Pakistanis had a way for Kim Jong-il to restart a nuclear program we had stopped." China and Russia were less prominent suppliers, officials said.
The White House said on Thursday night that it would not discuss Pakistan's role or any other intelligence information. Nor would senior administration officials who briefed reporters on Thursday discuss exactly what intelligence they showed to North Korean officials two weeks ago, prompting the North's defiant declaration that it had secretly started a program to enrich uranium in violation of its past commitments.
The trade between Pakistan and North Korea appears to have occurred around 1997, roughly two years before General Pervez Musharraf took power in a bloodless coup. However, the relationship appears to have continued after Musharraf became president, and there is some evidence that a commercial relationship between the two countries extended beyond Sept. 11 of last year.
A spokesman for the Pakistan Embassy, Asad Hayauddin, said it was "absolutely incorrect" to accuse Pakistan of providing nuclear weapons technology to North Korea. "We have never had an accident or leak or any export of fissile material or nuclear technology or knowledge," he said.
The suspected deal between Pakistan and North Korea underscores the enormous diplomatic complexity of the administration's task in trying to disarm North Korea, an effort that began in earnest on Thursday.
In Beijing, two American diplomats, James Kelly and John Bolton, pressed Chinese officials to use all their diplomatic and economic leverage to persuade North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons program. The subject is expected to dominate a meeting next week between US President George W. Bush -- who a spokesman said on Thursday "believes this is troubling and sobering news" -- and Chinese President Jiang Zemin (
Bush did not address the North Korean revelation during appearances in Atlanta and Florida on Thursday. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld did talk about the disclosures at the Pentagon, but one official said the effort to play down the topic was part of an administration strategy of "avoiding a crisis atmosphere."
At the same time, White House and State Department officials argued that, what they called North Korea's "belligerent" announcement to a visiting American delegation two weeks ago, demonstrated the need to disarm Iraq before it enjoys similar success.
"Here's a case in North Korea where weapons have proliferated and put at risk our interests and the interests of two of our great allies," Japan and South Korea, Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage said on Thursday. "It might make our case more strong in Iraq."
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